The Mary Sue Invasion
by Tuulikki
Summary: Seven new girls arrive to Domino... They are beautiful, mysterious, and - some of them - dangerous, but they all know the value of True Love. -COMPLETED-
1. Run While You Can

Okay… would you believe me if I told you that this story came to me in a dream? -sweatdrop- I woke up one morning and there were two things in my mind: the title of this story and the words Millennium M… no, actually I don't think that I'm going to tell you what. You'll see. -grin- Anyways, then I went back to sleep (I was feeling quite sick, you see) and forgot about this, but the crazy little plot bunny came back to my mind later that day and I wrote this. So, beware, this first chapter is the product of a feverish mind…

It's AU, kind of. In the universe of this story, the Egyptian Arc never took place, the yamis are capable of separating from their hikaris (except Yami no Malik), and, well, all the characters are friends, kind of. (Most of the time, anyway.)

**Disclaimer: **Let's face the facts. I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh. I never have owned it and I never will.

* * *

**The Mary-Sue Invasion**

**Chapter 1: Run While You Can…**

It was a beautiful, sunny day. The park was full of people, which wasn't at all surprising, given that it was the first day of the summer vacation. Some were playing games, others were just lying on the grass, while others…

"Look out, Kaiba!"

…were trying to work.

The brunet boy sitting in the shadow of a big tree looked up with a start, just in time to see a football flying to his direction. It hit him on the forehead, knocking him over by his portable computer.

"Damn… Watch it, mutt!" he shouted angrily at the blond boy who ran after the ball.

"Me? It was Honda who kicked that one, Moneybags, why do you always blame me?"

"I kicked the ball to you, you were supposed to catch it, idiot!"

Jou had reached the ball and flung it with strength at Honda. "Don't you call me idiot!"

"Why not?" Honda ducked the ball and it bounced away. "The way you scored in the last math test…"

He didn't have time to finish his sentence before Jou punched him into stomach. "Keep quiet about that!"

Seto shook his head as he checked his computer, which, very luckily for the fighting boys' part, had not suffered any harm. "Kids these days," he muttered as he returned to his work.

"Shouldn't we go to separate them?" Anzu asked, sitting up on the grass as she looked worriedly at the two boys.

Yuugi shook his head with a little laugh. "There's no point… they'll pick up a fight five minutes later again. Anyway, it looks worse than it is, they're not going to really hurt each other."

"If you say so…" Anzu didn't look convinced, but dropped the subject.

"Are they fighting _again_?"

They turned to look at a small boy who stopped beside them, an enormous ice cream in his hand.

Yuugi winced. "I don't understand how you can eat that much ice cream, Mokuba. I don't think I could get any of that stuff down anymore…"

Anzu snorted. "That's not any wonder… keeping in mind that you've eaten six in the last two hours…"

Yuugi punched at the giggling girl. "Well maybe, but have you counted how many _he_ has eaten?" He gestured towards Mokuba who was walking towards his brother to try to convince him to stop working for a moment.

"I wonder when Ryou's coming… he should be here by now," Yuugi muttered as he lay down on the grass, closing his eyes.

"Well… if I'm not badly mistaken I think he's just coming… and are those Malik and Otogi with him?" Anzu stared at the three approaching figures, one of who had a white mop of hair that really couldn't belong to any other than Bakura Ryou.

"Otogi too? I didn't know he was coming. Now, there we have a good example for Seto… I don't really think that _Otogi_ has a computer with himself, and he has a company of his own too."

Seto, who had heard the comment, snorted while flipping through his papers.

"Really? I don't need any examples, thank you very much."

"C'mon, Seto." Yuugi rolled on his side and stared sleepily at the working boy. "You really should learn how to relax… At least Otogi knows how to do that."

Seto snorted again. "You don't have to tell me _that_. But I don't really think that he has anything to teach me…"

"Really? At least I could teach you to be a little more… _charmant_, you know." Seto looked up from his computer and stared with annoyance at the black-haired boy who was just sitting down beside Yuugi and Anzu. Otogi flashed him a quick smile. "Although… I'm afraid that my charm can't be learned, it's innate."

Seto rolled his eyes and turned back to his computer, deciding not to dignify that with an answer.

"So, how are you guys doing?" Yuugi asked as the newcomers made themselves comfortable.

Ryou lay down on the grass with a sigh. "I don't know about others, but I'm _dead_."

"Oh?" Anzu looked at him worriedly. "Is something wrong?"

Ryou gave a short laugh. "No, nothing really. It's just that my father visited me… He came yesterday and left today, and I guess he was trying to make up for all the time he's gone during that time. So… I ended up doing all kinds of father-son stuff yesterday and this morning, and… I'm quite dead."

The others laughed.

"Hi guys!" Jou and Honda jogged to them and sat down also. "What's up?"

Malik shrugged. "Nothing much. So, what are you planning to do?"

"Sleep," Ryou muttered drowsily, but he was ignored.

"Why don't we go to check the girls? There are lots of them around here and they're not wearing that much… Anzu! Stop that!"

"_You_ stop that, Jou." Anzu gave him one final whack with her bag. "You really should show a little more respect towards girls."

Malik raised an eyebrow at her. "You know… you sounded just like my sister for a moment. But that wasn't such a bad idea, after all… hey! Don't hit me!" he rolled hastily a little farther away from Anzu who was glaring at him in his turn.

"You can always stay here with the Sleeping Beauty and Moneybags, if you want to," Jou said to Anzu. Ryou commented something at this, but no one could really make out what he muttered.

"So…" Jou looked expectantly at Yuugi. "Do you want to come?"

Yuugi blushed bright red, and glanced hesitantly at Anzu. To his great relief he avoided answering when a cheerful voice suddenly made them all to start.

"Oh my, isn't he _cute_!"

Ryou woke up as well and opened his eyes to see a beautiful black-haired girl staring at him admiringly. A little belatedly he realized that the previous comment was made about him, and he too felt a blush covering his cheeks.

The girl made a quiet 'awww' sound. "Look at him…"

Jou and Honda, on the other hand, were staring at the girl – and the six other equally beautiful girls who surrounded her – with an awed expression. Well, to be truthful, everyone else was also staring at them, except Seto, who was staring at his computer screen, Ryou, who was staring at the ground, still blushing, Mokuba, who was staring at the boys with a wide grin, and Anzu, who was _very_ disapprovingly staring at Yuugi.

The girls smiled at them.

"Well, it took time, but finally we found them," one of them said, throwing her long, golden hair away from her face. "And they're all here! That's so lucky, don't you think?"

"Indeed," a redheaded girl answered, her green eyes sparkling. "I was getting tired of this search."

Yuugi blinked. "You were searching for us? Why?"

The girls glanced at each other, and two of them, auburn-haired girls with strikingly similar features – they were obviously twins – began to giggle.

The other girls looked at them disapprovingly, while one of them stepped forward and crouched down before Yuugi. She smiled at him friendly, her long silvery hair framing her face perfectly. She looked like an angel in her simple light blue summer dress, which matched perfectly her blue eyes.

"My name is Aurora," she said. "If I am not mistaken, you are the one in whom resides the soul of a powerful Pharaoh."

Yuugi blinked. "How did you…"

"Oh, you see, we are no ordinary girls. We are the Millennium Girls." She made a dramatic pause and continued then when no one said anything. "You see, all the ordinary Millennium Items are held by men and…"

"Hey, I wouldn't say that my sister's a man!" Malik interrupted her.

She frowned a little. "Very well, maybe there is _one_ woman, but you have to admit that one out of seven is not that many. So we are needed to make sure that the balance is maintained."

"The balance?" Yuugi hadn't felt this confused for a long time.

Aurora nodded. "Yes. Yin and yang, you know."

Yuugi nodded, just for sure, and the girl stood up, smiling gently at him. "You're really cute too, you know… Especially when you're confused like that." Anzu glared at her angrily. She was going to say something but a voice cut her off.

"What does this have to do with us? The balance has been 'maintained' for a long time now, without us knowing anything about you. So why have you come?"

The girls started whispering among themselves as they looked at the speaker.

"It's him, don't you think…"

"Yeah, has to be… the priest…"

"Now, Unity, it's your chance…"

They pushed the redhead forward and she smiled at Seto hesitantly. "Hi. Umm… I… I'm Unity. You don't probably remember me, but I was a priestess back in the ancient Egypt and we were… really close. Unfortunately, I had to be sacrificed to prevent a great evil from happening, so… uh…"

The words died on her lips as Seto, who had been staring at her as if she sprouting extra heads, shook his head in exasperation and walked back to his computer without saying a word.

"That's rude…"

"Yeah, but don't give up Unity…"

"You have to give him time, he's had a difficult childhood."

Unity nodded. "Yes. I have to be understanding."

Jou laughed out loud. "Understanding? That's an understatement if you want to be with Moneybags…"

The auburn-haired girls looked at him. "He's quite cute too, isn't he, sis?"

"Sure. I think I want him…"

The other glared at her sister. "Hey, I saw him first!"

"Hey, hey girls, don't start fighting now." Aurora stepped between them. "Look, his friend isn't that bad either. Why don't you try him, so Maryann can have the blond? Is that okay, Susan?"

The girl pouted a little, but nodded then. "I guess."

Jou and Honda stared alternately at the girls and each other. "Hey, don't we have a say in this matter?" Honda asked.

Aurora looked at them in surprise. "Why, the girls are so pretty, aren't they? Of course you want to go out with them."

Yuugi stood up, he had had enough. Or rather, his yami had. The Puzzle glowed softly and Yami Yuugi appeared standing beside his other half. Before he could say anything, Aurora had turned around with a start, there had been a bright flash, _two_ Auroras, and suddenly the other one had flung herself on Yami's neck.

"My love!"

Yami blinked slowly. "What… Hey, let go, woman!" He tried to get rid of the girl who was squeezing him a little too hard.

Finally she let go and stepped back with a crooked smile. "What, don't you remember me, my dear? Is it possible that you have forgotten your queen?"

Yami stared at her, his mind gone blank.

"Q-queen?" he finally stuttered. "I'm pretty sure I wasn't married…"

"Of course you were, dear. Not for long though… I died young fighting with you against horrible monsters. Then my soul was sealed into the Millennium Mascara to…"

Jou and Honda burst into laughter while Yami was stuttering in horror.

"M-m-millenn… millennium m-m-masc…" He found himself unable to say the word. "Tha… that's… _blasphemy_!"

"What's so funny about that?" Aurora, or more precisely, Yami Aurora stared icily at the laughing boys.

Maryann and Susan glanced at each other nervously. "Don't hurt them, okay? Please, you wouldn't kill our loves?" Susan begged softly, something wet glistening in the corner of her rain-gray eyes.

Yami Aurora frowned, but shrugged then and turned back to Yami. "I don't think that you stuttered like that back in Egypt… Oh well, it doesn't matter." She sighed. "I had imagined that our reunion would have been a little more… _romantic_, but at least we have found each other, so everything is fine now." She smiled widely at Yami, who still looked quite confused. "Come on now, aren't you going to give your wife a kiss?"

"Bullshit."

"What?" With a start she turned to look at Yami Bakura who had separated from Ryou and was just getting up from the ground. "I said that that's bullshit. I'd know if he were marr…"

"My love!

The black-haired girl flung herself on Yami Bakura, making him to fall down again. She hugged him tightly. "It's me! Your loved one! Don't you remember me? Your beloved thief queen?"

"Holy crap," Otogi whispered. At this point, even Seto was staring at the girls with wide eyes.

"Get off of me…" Bakura muttered, pushing the girl away and glaring at her darkly. "No, I don't remember you. Actually I _do_ remember that there were no thief queens, so…"

"Now don't be an idiot, honey. Of course I was there! I died when I was trying to save your life, don't you remember? And then I was sealed into the Millennium Dagger."

_I was afraid she'd say she was sealed into the Millennium Lipstick_, Jou thought, feeling a little dizzy. _Maybe we're all having hallucinations or something after eating too much ice cream… That'd explain this._

"My name is Pearl," the black-haired girl was saying, staring at Bakura with dark brown, almost black eyes. "I was called Black Pearl in the times when we terrorized the travelers of…"

"I don't remember terrorizing any travelers, only the Pharaoh," Bakura said. "Anyway, I was a _tomb_ robber."

Pearl sighed. "Don't be so difficult, honey."

The two remaining girls, who hadn't yet declared anyone to be their 'love', looked at each other. They were both blondes, another with beautifully waving shoulder-length hair, and the other with long golden hair that glistened in the sunlight and fell down her back.

"Maybe we should introduce ourselves too, don't you think?"

The other nodded. "Good idea." She looked at the boys. "My name is Azura, and this is Felicia." She gestured towards the golden-haired girl.

"Hi," Felicia said smiling. "Nice to meet you. Especially you Malik…"

Now it was Malik's turn to blink. "Don't tell me you were married to me in the ancient Egypt. I _didn't live_ in the ancient Egypt."

The girl laughed. "No, of course not. Don't be silly. You see, I'm from Egypt just as you. You saved me once, don't you remember? When my…" Her amber eyes clouded for a moment, "…when my drunken father was beating me again. You knocked him senseless and left before I could thank you. I was afraid I'd never find you again, but now I did." She walked to Malik and tried to hug him but he backed away from her quickly.

"You're nuts. I'm pretty sure that I'd remember something like that…"

"They're all nuts, if you ask me, " Otogi said. "Maybe we should call some local lunatic asylum to ask if they're missing some patients…"

Azura laughed, a beautiful, melodious sound, like a small brook rippling on its way over the rocks. "You're quite funny, you know. And cute…" She looked at him tilting her head a little on the side. "I really like that earring…"

"Oh, that's great!" Unity clapped her hands. "Now we all have someone!"

Yami snorted. "Wrong, milady, _none_ of you has _anyone_. Come on, let's go away from here." He gestured to his friends and they followed him as he started to walk away. Anzu shot one more angry glare at the two Auroras, and winced a little when she saw the expression on the yami's face.

"So…" Yami Aurora hissed, a hand in the pocket of her dress. "You want to do this the hard way. I will have to teach you…" She began to draw the hand out of the pocket.

"Look out, guys!" Anzu shouted and they all turned quickly around, ready to fight.

"…the power of the Millennium Mascara!" Yami Aurora finished her sentence, drawing a mascara out of her pocket and holding it up.

"Oh Ra…" Yami rolled her eyes as the girls gathered around the mascara. "Are they going to make themselves up now or what? Make war-paint?"

That really seemed to be what was going on. All the girls used the mascara in turns and turned then to look at the staring boys.

Seto snorted. "Mascara… I'm terrified." He turned around and continued walking away. "So mutt, why are you leaving?" he asked Jou. "I thought you wanted to have some female company…"

Jou winced. "Some _sane_ female company, thank you very much."

Seto glanced at him with a smirk. "I'm afraid that's not possible… why would any _sane_ woman want to be with you?"

"You take that back!" Jou was going to give Seto a punch, but a voice from behind his back made him to turn around.

"Jou! My dear, look at me!"

He turned around angrily. "Can't you just leave us…" he began to shout, but then his eyes met those of Maryann, and he gulped. So beautiful gray eyes, like the sky on a rainy day… he couldn't help but stare into them.

"Jou? Hey man, what's wrong?" Honda grasped Jou's shoulders and shook him, but there was no effect. He turned to the little witch who had enchanted his friend. "What the hell did you do to him?" he shouted, not realizing that he was shouting at the wrong twin. Susan smiled at him brightly and looked into his eyes, and suddenly Honda was in the same state as his friend.

It took some time from the others to realize what had happened. "Jou! Honda!" Yuugi shouted when it finally sunk in, and sprinted to them.

"Aibou, no!" Yami shouted and reached to him, but he was too late. Aurora had already grasped Yuugi's shoulder, spun him around, and was just looking into his eyes. Soon Yuugi was also staring into emptiness like a zombie.

The Eye of Horus appeared on Yami's forehead as he glared at the girls in rage. "What do you think you're doing?"

Yami Aurora smirked as she stepped in the front of Yami. "What do you _think_ we're doing? Getting what is ours that's all."

And she looked into Yami's eyes.

Suddenly Yami found himself drowning into two pale blue oceans. Cold and icy oceans, but still far more beautiful than any other he had ever seen… In fact he didn't mind even if he _would_ drown in them…

_No_.

_What the hell am I thinking?_

He had to use all his willpower to make himself to return to the reality, and still he wasn't able to tear his eyes away from those of Yami Aurora's.

The dark girl smirked. "You're strong, my Pharaoh… but it is useless to fight against me."

Yami grimaced, sweat drops falling down his face. "Don't… look… them into… eyes," he muttered but it was a little too late. Ryou and Bakura were already enchanted by Pearl and her yami, and Azura was just finishing the task with Otogi. Seto had closed his eyes, telling Mokuba to lead him away, Anzu was fighting with Aurora, and Malik was pointing his Millennium Rod towards Felicia – or towards the place where he thought that Felicia was, he couldn't be sure since he was staring at the ground.

"What's _wrong_ with this thing!" he finally screamed, when it had become clear that his Rod didn't have any effect on the girl.

"Oh, I don't think that anything's wrong with it. At least I hope so… I know how frustrating it is when things don't work as they should." Felicia smiled understandingly at the horrified boy in front of her. "But," she continued, "if you're trying to work some kind of magic on me, it doesn't work because of this." She raised her hand showing him the glittering bracelet she was wearing.

Malik blinked and lowered slowly the Rod. "What…?"

Felicia smiled at him charmingly, flashing her perfect, white teeth. "It's my Millennium Bracelet. It protects me from magic. Quite beautiful, don't you think?" She moved her hand a little smiling at the way the bracelet shone in the sunlight. "I got it from my grandmother… She told me that it has some secret powers, but she did not know what, I had to find out about that on my own. And just believe me, it wasn't easy. Luckily I met soon the other girls, they have been of great help. Friends are good to have, don't you think? I don't know what I would have…"

"Shut up!" Malik screamed. Then he did the wise thing: turned around and ran.

"Oh bugger. Such a bother, don't you think…" Felicia sighed as she looked after the fleeing boy. Then she shrugged and ran after him.

Unity was still trying to make Seto to open his eyes, while Mokuba glared at her angrily as he guided his big brother away.

"Come on now, why don't you look at me? I know I'm not _that_ ugly…"

No use. She was starting to run out of things to say. Mokuba gave her another glare, and she smiled at the little boy.

"You're a real cutie, aren't you?" she said ruffling his hair.

"Hey! Don't touch me, witch!" Mokuba shouted and made a sudden move away from her.

Seto stopped on his heels. "What are you doing to my brother!" he shouted, his eyes snapped open, and…

_Oops…_

"So, did you get him finally?"

Unity turned to show the sign of victory to the other girls, grinning widely and ignoring Mokuba who was shaking Seto in panic.

"That's great! So, why don't we go to have some fun with our boyfriends?" Aurora asked smiling happily and holding Yuugi's hand.

"_Boyfriends?_" Anzu shrieked, but the girls ignored her.

"That's a great idea," Azura said, and the others nodded.

"We're going to the beach!"

"…to some nice little café…"

"To the movies at night…"

Anzu and Mokuba were left standing alone in the park, staring after the away walking group.

...

Somewhere far from the park, Malik finally reached his apartment, completely out of breath.

"Rishid!" He rushed into the house, grasping the first heavy, blunt object he saw. "Rishid! Where are you?"

The sound of running steps approached and suddenly Rishid appeared in the doorway, looking quite alarmed. "Master? What is…?" The sentence was cut off as Malik brought the said heavy object down on his head. Soundlessly Rishid fell down to the floor. Malik stared at his unmoving body for a while. "I'm sorry Rishid…" (1)

"What…?"

He raised his gaze from Rishid's body and saw Isis staring at him with wide eyes.

"Run sis, while you can," he whispered as he felt his darker half taking over his body.

"So…" Smiling viciously Yami Malik turned towards the outdoor as Isis gulped and stepped back. He glanced at her with a snort. "Don't worry, sister dear, I am not interested about you now. No…" He fingered gently his Millennium Rod, his voice softening to a malicious whisper. "There are some girls who want to play with me… and play we shall. The darkness… is hungry. I will…"

To Isis's great relief he was cut off before he could finish his sentence.

"Maaaliiiik!" A happily grinning girl appeared by the outdoor. "Why did you run away, my little Mariku? That's not good manners, to force women run after you… What are you doing, honey?"

She frowned in confusion at the Millennium Rod, which was pointed towards her.

"You know, honey, that thing doesn't work against me."

"Maybe not… but I want you to see it and remember that its bearer is to be treated with respect. I don't need any tools to get rid of someone like you…" He reached towards Felicia's neck, but she smiled at him beautifully, batting her eyelashes, and suddenly his hands dropped to his sides as he stared at her eyes. So beautiful amber eyes, so long lashes…

"That's better." She grasped his hand and drew him out of the door. "Let's go to have some fun, honey."

Without a word Malik followed her out.

In the house Isis shook her head, not knowing whether she was awake or dreaming. She run to the door and saw the two walking away hand in hand.

"Hey, wait! What are you doing? Who _are_ you?"

Felicia glanced behind, waving at her with her other hand. "Don't worry, we're just going to the movies or something like that. And I'm his new girlfriend."

And they walked away.

* * *

(1) So, why did Malik knock poor Rishid senseless? Well, as long as Rishid is active, Yami Malik can't take control. Rishid somehow… pushes him to the background or something… If you want to have a better explanation, go to check Lizeth's Yugioh site (the spoilers/theories section, 'the False Yami'). She has a link to her site on her ffnet account.

.

Okay, let me give you one piece of advice. _Don't_ write a scene where you have 20 people interacting with each other. It's damned hard to keep track on them all, I just found that out the hard way… And there were a little too many OCs to keep them straight, I guess.

I don't know if it was a good idea to post this yet… I just was impatient to get some opinions. This first chapter just kind of happened, I didn't have anything planned when I wrote it, and afterwards I was like 'okay, now I've got them _into_ trouble, how on earth I'm going to get them _out of_ this mess?' -some major sweatdropping- So, I can't promise you any fast updates… although I now do have some vague ideas of what to do with this. Anyways, I'm going to be really busy next few weeks so… We'll see. I can promise that I'm most definitely going to continue this, but other than that… -shrugs- Don't hold your breath waiting.

Y'know, I'd really like to know exactly what I dreamed that night… (...or maybe it's just good that I don't remember it, on closer thought.)

(August 8, 2005: I've just started reading through this and correcting some little but annoying grammar mistakes etc. So if you spot anything in the following chapters, feel free to point them out. It will probably take me some time to read the whole thing…)


	2. Plotting

Two weeks. I got this second chapter out in two weeks. That's quite good, isn't it? Isn't it...? ^^;; And by now, this thing actually has a plot, although I'm afraid it's still in the fetal stage. ^^; Oh well. A short and crappy chapter, but at least you're getting something... -_-

Anyways, some review responses:

Neko-chan: *grin* Y'know, when I wrote that part I thought that if you ever happen to read it, you'll be out for blood. I'm just glad that you'll settle with Felicia's... ^ ~ Just be patient... Anyways, _many_ thanks for the review (and for that of WaLGMo too). Annnnd~ I read that _Blame Neko-chan_ song in your bio and laughed myself sick. *grin* You _do_ have a bad influence on us... *thinks of the weird lil' thing she wrote after reading Ore Sama* Yea, shame on you! :p

Spirit of the Ring: Glad you liked it. I don't know if this was so soon, but at least I'm continuing... ^^;;

Pikachumaniac: O_o I'm continuing, I'm continuing, don't hurt me... Huh. Good thing Mahaado's there. ^ ~ Anyway, I'm really glad that you liked this. And now I've finally remembered that thing I was going to ask you in my review of Painted Sky... So, I'm not sure yet, but there's a slight possibility that I'd like to use Yuki in this, so... is that okay? I just started to get some weird ideas when I saw him smiling in the review... (yes, and Mr. Feathers actually pops up shortly in this chapter, hope you don't mind... ^~)

Ethelflaed: Thanks for the review, but let's not kill anyone yet... All in good time. ^^ As for your question... *shrugs* I'm used to think of the characters with their Japanese names, and of the items as the _Millennium_ Items, so... *shrugs again* Besides, there's nice alliteration in Millennium Mascara. ^^

Bakuraluva: Sailor Moon? *blink* Yee~es, maybe. I think I see what you mean, but I really wouldn't have thought of that. *grin* Anyways, thanks for the review!

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh, and all pink flamingos that appear in this chapter actually belong to Pikachumaniac.

**Chapter 2: Plotting**

"Get in Anzu. The others are here already."

"Thanks. Big place you have, Mai..."

The blonde girl shrugged. "Maybe. This way, follow me."

The two girls walked to a big living room where four other persons were sitting by a comfortably crackling fire.

"Hi Anzu!"

"Hello Mokuba." She smiled at the small boy, as well as at the other visitors. A little worriedly she noticed how tired Mutou Sugoroku seemed to be.

"Are you all right, jiichan?" she asked.

The old man smiled at her reassuringly. "Just a little tired... Lately Yuugi hasn't been of any help in keeping the shop."

Shizuka sighed. "I'm sure he hasn't, if he behaves like my brother does... During the past week I haven't been able to talk with Jou about anything else but Maryann. He's all the time with her - and if he isn't, he's somewhere dreaming about her."

"I've noticed," Mai said dryly. "He completely ignores me nowadays."

Anzu raised her eyebrows as she sat down. "I wouldn't have thought that you'd mind that. I thought you said that you don't care about him..."

Mai shifted uncomfortably. "Well, maybe, but... I don't still want him to be ignoring me."

"It's the same with Yuugi and Yami," Anzu said sighing. "I don't think that they anymore even remember that I exist..."

She frowned a little as she remembered what had happened two days ago when she had decided to pay a visit to Yuugi and his yami. Sugoroku had been working at the shop, and after they had exchanged few words, she had climbed to the upstairs, looking for Yuugi. What she had found was Aurora, lying on Yuugi's bed reading a magazine.

_She stopped at the doorway, staring hostilely at the silvery haired girl. After a moment Aurora realized that she wasn't alone anymore, and raised her head from the pillow._

_"Hi!" She smiled brightly at the brunette who was glaring daggers at her. "Nice to see you! Have you... calmed down from the time we last talked?_

_Anzu kept on glaring at her. "Witch," she muttered under her breath. Aurora sighed, and sat up on the bed._

_"Obviously not," she said. "Look, I can understand that you have a thing for Yuugi - or his yami, I'm not sure for witch one - but you could even _try _to be a good loser. If they have chosen us..._

_"They haven't chosen anything! The only reason they stand your company for five minutes is your damned mascara!"_

_Aurora shifted uncomfortably. "For now, yes, but after some time, when they've come to know us, we won't need it anymore. They..."_

_Anzu snorted. "You think that they will forgive you? You're more stupid than I thought, then. Just wait... as soon as Yami is back to himself, you'll find yourself on a one way trip to the Shadow Realm." At this point she was almost boiling with rage. "Actually I think that I'll find a way to send you there by myself!" she shrieked as Aurora was going to say something._

_Aurora's eyes widened in shock as she suddenly lunged towards her. Before Anzu could reach the other girl, though, she felt something hitting her back._

_"No! Leave her be!" _

_The said something hit her again. It didn't hurt though, whatever it was, was really soft._ _In confusion she turned to look behind, just in time to see Yuugi hit her again with something pink._

_"Yuugi? What..." She stumbled few steps backwards, away from the glowering small boy, who was whacking her with a pink stuffed flamingo._

_"Leave her be, I said!"_ Whack. _"Don't even dare to think about hurting her!"_ Whack. _"Leave."_ Whack._ "Her."_ Whack._ "BE!"_ Whack.

_Finally Yuugi stopped the whacking, and stood still, literally shaking with anger, and staring at her with flaming eyes. Anzu had backed to the wall and leaned against it, more shaken than she had ever been, and stared at the small boy with wide eyes._

_"Oh my dearest!" Aurora shouted suddenly, dashing to Yuugi. "My hero..." She bent down to hug him. The pink flamingo dropped from Yuugi's hands, forgotten, as he hugged her back._

_"What is going on here?" a cold voice asked from the door, and both Anzu and Aurora turned to look at the newcomer - Yuugi kept on hugging Aurora, face buried against her neck._

_Anzu gulped as she met Yami Aurora's cold eyes._ I don't think that I want to be here, _she thought, and made a hesitant move towards the door. The only problem was that the said yami was standing on her way._

_"She threatened me with the Shadow Realm, yami, "Aurora said quietly, and her yami's eyes narrowed._

_"Really? That is not a good idea, little girl. I..."_

_"Where did you go, love?" a new voice interrupted her, and soon Yami appeared behind her shoulder. He frowned a little as he saw the angry expression on his love's face._

_"What is it?" He noticed Anzu in the room and his frown deepened. "Is this girl bothering you?"_

_Yami Aurora smirked a little. "Yes, dear, indeed she is," she purred. "Could you do something about it?"_

_"Anything for you," Yami looked at her admiringly. At that time Anzu decided that she _really_ didn't want to be around there at all, and darted past both yamis and out of the door._

_"Hey!" she heard Yami shouting after her, and knew without telling that the Eye of Horus had appeared on his forehead. She run to the downstairs, out through the back door, and didn't stop running until she was totally out of breath._

"Yeah... I don't think that they exactly remember me anymore..." she muttered, thinking aloud.

"That's nothing, but I don't think that _niisama_ remembers that _I_ exist," Mokuba piped up with a small sniffle, startling her awake from her thoughts.

Isis hugged him comfortingly. "We'll make him to remember, don't worry about that." She looked at the others. "I don't think that I have to tell you that Malik's behaving just in the same way. What really freaks me out is that even his darker personality behaves like that when he's in the control... We even tried to..." she cut herself off, looking quite ill at ease as she stared at the carpet.

"What?" Anzu asked looking at her expectantly.

Isis shook her head, almost angrily. "Oh, then on the first day, Yami Malik wasn't really in control for long, and we thought that if we arranged so that he'd stay in control, say, day or two, maybe he'd scare Felicia away, but..."

"Let me guess," Mokuba said wryly, leaning back on the couch, "it didn't work."

"No," Isis said with a sigh. "It most definitely didn't work. First I thought that all was going fine when Yami Malik disappeared one night and then came back with a bloody, still warm _heart_ which he gave to Felicia - I don't really want to know where he got it from. I guess it was supposed to somehow symbol his giving his own heart to her... Anyways, you can bet she was quite upset about that... but then suddenly she turned all teary-eyed, and started going on about her 'poor misunderstood little boy who's forced to use violence to get attention' or something like that... and then she started to explain to him what people can do and what they can't to each other and... well, let's just say that now neither Malik nor his yami does anything before they're sure that she approves of it."

With a shaky sigh she rubbed softly her temples. "It just freaks me out..." she muttered quietly. "It doesn't matter which one of them is in control, he's just like a kitten when she's around."

This time it was Mokuba's turn to give her a hug. "Don't you worry either, we'll get them back to what they were."

Shizuka shivered a little. "I'm not sure if that's such a great option either," she muttered so quietly no one heard her.

The wood cracked loudly in the fire, breaking the silence that had followed and startling everyone.

"Right..." Mai cleared her throat uneasily. "I'm pretty sure that we all agree that we must do something."

"Definitely," Sugoroku said as the others nodded. "If not for any other reason than that they're _dangerous_ in their current state. Few days ago Yami almost mind crushed one customer who spoke sharply to his 'loved one'." He shook his head as he recalled the situation. "And having customers mind crushed would be _really_ bad for the business..." he added under the breath.

"But what should we do?" Shizuka asked, shooting a sharp glance at the old man.

"Well..." Anzu looked up from the floor she had been staring at with a thoughtful expression. "Maybe we should try to steal that mascara thing. Anyways, it is what they use to control the boys and if it's gone..."

Sugoroku nodded. "It's a good idea. Of course we could try kidnapping the boys and keeping them somewhere till the effect fades away, but as long as the mascara exists..."

"As long as it exists, they're in danger," Mai finished his sentence. "So, any ideas of _how_ we're going to steal it?"

A long silence followed.

"Maybe we should first go through everything we know about these girls," Isis said finally, and the others agreed. Mai got some paper and a pen, and sat down with them.

"Hmmm... We know that Aurora has the mascara, Pearl has the dagger, and Felicia has the bracelet. Of these, we _don't_ know what powers the dagger has. So, does anyone know if the other girls have some Millennium Items?"

"Ummm..." Mokuba stared at the floor thoughtfully. "I don't know if Unity has any Millennium Item, but... She does have a strange computer. It's really small, portable, and it seems that it doesn't need any electricity to work... She's really protective over it, and when she saw that I was examining it she got really angry."

Anzu looked over Mai's shoulder as she wrote and snorted. "Millennium Computer? I don't think they had computers in ancient Egypt."

Mai shrugged. "Maybe not, but _I_ don't think that they had any mascaras either. At least not these modern-day plastic ones... Anything else?"

Mokuba shook his head.

"I don't really know about this but I saw something quite weird one day," Shizuka said thoughtfully. "Maryann and Susan were going somewhere - they had Jou and Honda with them of course - and it seemed that they were having a fight over exactly where they were going. So, Maryann took an old-looking book from her bag, it had the eye of Horus on it's cover - or something that looked like the eye, anyway. She gave it to Susan who wrote into it with a quill and then Maryann read what she had written, and... well, that's it. Then they left somewhere. There was a weird air of... _ritual_ in the whole thing."

Everyone was staring at the brown haired girl.

"Millennium Book and Millennium Quill...?" Mai shook her head, but wrote it down with a big question mark. "Talk about weird..." she muttered. "That leaves Azura. Does anyone know about her?"

Everyone shook their heads.

Mai looked at what she had written and sighed. "That's not much... Can't _anyone_ really think about anything useful?"

Again, silence followed.

She sighed again. "I guess not."

Isis bit her lip softly. "You know... I was thinking about what jiichan said about kidnapping the boys and... maybe we should try that first. I've noticed that the effect of the mascara starts fading away after few days, and then it has to be used again. If we could keep them away from the girls for few days, then they could help us to defeat them."

"Not a bad idea," Mai said, thinking about it. "We certainly could use the yamis' powers. What about your Tauk, by the way? Is it of any help?"

Isis shook her head. "I don't think so. The only thing I can do with it is to look into the near future, and it really hasn't shown me anything of importance lately."

Mai snorted. "Figures," she muttered. "The only Millennium Item we have, and it's of no help. Oh well. But speaking of our kidnapping scheme... where would we keep them? The girls know where we live so we can't take them to our homes."

Silence took over again, as everyone thought about this. The only sounds in the large room came from the clock ticking on the wall and the crackling of the wood in the fireplace.

"I know!"

Everyone turned to look at Mokuba. "What?" Anzu asked.

"I can hire some house where we can take them."

"You can?" Isis looked at him skeptically. "I mean... you're just a kid."

Mokuba snorted. "Of course I can, just leave it to me. You can have it tomorrow, if you want to - or _today_, in five minutes."

"The sooner the better, if you ask me," Anzu said, and the others agreed.

"So, if Mokuba arranges the house for us, I can drive the boys there," Yuugi's grandpa said. "I think they all have room in my van... The remaining problem is how we're going to get them away from their 'loves'."

Shizuka smirked a little. "I think that I will have no problems in cheating those stupid twins... Honestly, they should be blondes- no offense, Mai," she added quickly, as she saw the blonde girl frowning.

"Unity is easily tricked as well," Mokuba said, kicking his legs happily. "She's quite goodhearted, actually... Maybe if I act miserably enough she'll let me have some time together with niisama."

Anzu grinned. "You should face no problems in that... What about the others?"

Isis shook her head. "I'm not sure about Felicia... She's not very bright, but Malik's quite protective of her, it's not easy to separate them. I should come up with some way to make her to _order_ him to leave her alone for a while, but I'm not sure how to do that."

Shizuka looked at her. "Maybe my plan for the twins would work on her too... We have to talk about it. But that leaves Aurora, Azura and Pearl..."

"Aurora is going to be a difficult one... or at least her yami will be that," Sugoroku said. "And probably Pearl too. They seem to be quite bright, and their yamis are quite ruthless. Although..." he paused, considering things. "Aurora herself is also rather good-natured, maybe I can convince her that I really need Yuugi's help in something."

Shizuka and Isis had been whispering together, and now they turned to the others.

"Okay, here's what we thought," Shizuka said. "In three days there'll be the annual Domino Fashion Show. The twins have been talking about it for long. I think that they were going to take Jou and Honda with them there, but it'll be easy to convince them to leave them home... so that they can 'surprise' the boys later with beautiful new dresses." She grinned, uncharacteristically wickedly.

"That should work for Felicia too," Isis said. "Maybe we could make them all to go there together and to leave the boys home."

Mokuba shook his head. "It won't work with Unity. She doesn't care about anything but her stupid computer, least of all clothes. It's quite amazing how she manages to look so good given the rags she's always wearing. But it doesn't matter... I can take care of her on my own." He looked at the others smugly, and Anzu rolled her eyes.

"Just like his brother," she muttered.

"That sounds like a good plan," Sugoroku said slowly. "Although I'm not sure if the yamis are interested in fashion shows... Still, it's worth trying. It would probably be best if you'd try to get your quality time with niisama the same day the fashion show takes place, Mokuba."

The small boy nodded. "Sure."

...

"No... I don't think that I'm coming, I... Yes, I know, but Mary, _you_ know I don't like those... I don't know why, I just am like that. You go and have fun, I... yes... yes..."

Mokuba was lying on a big armchair, feet on its back and head on the seat, listening as Unity talked with Maryann in the phone. She was sitting on the couch, and Seto was sitting beside her, staring at her worshipfully. It was the first day after the enchantment had been renewed, and that was always the worst time. As the enchantment gradually faded away, the victims would behave at least a little more normally, but on the first day...

Mokuba sighed as he looked at his brother who stared at Unity as if she were a goddess from the heavens and chatting about the meaning of life with her fellow goddesses in the phone.

When Unity finally ended the phone call, she got up from the couch, patting Seto on the cheek and smiling at him.

"Come on, honey. Let's go to..."

Mokuba chose that moment to sigh heartbreakingly.

"What?" She turned to look at Mokuba. "Is something wrong, cutie?"

Slowly, Mokuba rolled around and sat up.

"Not really..." he said, staring at the ground and sighing again.

Unity frowned. "You know... I don't think that that was exactly true..."

_Aren't you the bright one... _Mokuba resisted an urge to roll his eyes and continued staring at the ground, trying to look as miserable as he could.

"You know, kid," Unity continued, "whatever it is, you can tell it to me." She walked to Mokuba and kneeled down beside him, taking his hand into hers.

"I know that your life has been difficult too, just as your brother's," she whispered sympathetically, "If you're having some problems again, just tell me. I understand."

Mokuba shifted restlessly on his chair. "It's just that..." he gulped, and Unity squeezed his hand reassuringly. "I miss niisama," he whispered, forcing a tear to roll down his cheek - which wasn't as difficult as he had thought. He really _did_ miss his brother, after all.

Unity blinked. "What? But he's right here." She gestured at Seto who was standing right behind her, his eyes fixed on her.

"I know." Mokuba looked finally up and met Unity's eyes, giving her the dreaded lost-and-abandoned-puppy-eyes look. _I don't need mascara to do this..._ "But he's all the time with you... We _never_ spend any time together anymore."

"Oh." Unity stared at him as if he had told her some great secret, which she could have never figured out on her own. "_Oh._"

For a moment she looked at Mokuba who bit his lip as if to stop it from quivering - in truth he was trying not to laugh. Then she hugged him.

"Oh you poor thing... I've been so selfish... We're going to movies now, you can come with us if you want to."

Mokuba forced a smile on his lips. "That's nice of you... but..."

"Yes?"

"Could I possibly have a little time alone with him? Please? Pretty please? Pleasepleaseplease..." He grasped Unity's arm before she could get up from the floor and stared into her eyes. "Please?"

"Yes, well..." She cleared her throat, looking away. "I guess... but not today, okay?"

"Tomorrow?"

She thought about it and shrugged then. "I guess it doesn't really matter."

"Yes!" Mokuba bounced up and wrapped his arms around her. "Thanyouthankyouthankyou..."

"Yes, yes, calm down..." Unity got up from the floor and smiled at the beaming boy. "There... if people only realized how small things can make other people happy the world would be a lot better place... but we really have to be going now. Come on, Seto!"

Mokuba watched how his brother followed Unity out of the room like a puppy dog, a small grin playing on his lips. _Gotcha._

Then he rushed away to call his fellow conspirators.

* * *

No comment. There'll be no comment, from me now... I'd probably just scare all the readers away. I just came home about an hour ago, we were in the movies, watching Kill Bill. That's... very... interesting movie. Not nice. Bloody. _Not_ nice.

One question: is that 'eye-picture', the one I've so far been calling the sennen eye, actually the Eye of Ra or the Eye of Horus? I've seen both terms used so if someone there knows which is right, please tell me too.


	3. The Plot in Action

Third chapter. ^^ Again in two weeks, I have to say that I'm surprised about that... I think I'll try to keep on updating every second week, but I can't promise anything, I'm really busy nowadays. *stares at her schedule with a sigh* The end of term exams, and that essay of thousand words... not to talk about a research paper of 15 _pages_ - not that I'd have to get it finished this year, but still... Never forgetting the ordinary homework. ^^;; Someone shoot me, please..

Anyway... it _has_ been some time since the first chapter, and I was wondering if anyone anymore remembers who of the M-S's was who and with whom. Not that it matters, really... guess I could call them MS1, MS2 and so on. ^^ Anyways, here's a list for you:

Aurora (has a yami), silvery hair and pale blue eyes, Yuugi & Yami

Azura, blond shoulder length hair and blue eyes, Otogi

Felicia, long golden hair and amber eyes, Malik

Twins: Maryann and Susan, auburn hair, gray eyes, Jou & Honda

Pearl (has a yami), black hair, dark brown (almost black) eyes, Ryou & Bakura

Unity, red hair, green eyes with golden spots, Seto

^^ Maybe you don't need that list, but _I_ do.

Thanks to everyone who has reviewed! That is:

Neko-chan: O_o Okay... I guess I really shouldn't be surprised about any of this. Hmmm... wondering if I should found a shelter for my poor Mary-Sues... ^~ "You WILL be killing her off soon, won't you?" Well... *checks her schedule* is next January soon? Meanwhile, here's some salt for you.

Ethelflaed: *grins* 'Tis randomness, 'tis randomness that makes the world go round... or something like that... Anyways, thanks for the review. There isn't that much in this about Kaiba's "alone time", I'm afraid, but I hope you like what there is. ^^

kaz: Hi and welcome! Nice to hear from you again... you reviewed WaLGMo, if I remember right. Thanks for the review, I'm really glad you like this.

Pikachumaniac: Thanks! Yep, I think I might use Yuki at one point... anyway, I have to save what's left of Mahaado's staff. *stares at the staff blinking slowly* I knew that dogs gnaw staffs, but that seals also... Anyway, thanks for the review. ^^

* * *

**Chapter 3**

"Yami?"

The unmoving figure sitting by the window remained as it was, unmoving. Sugoroku took hesitantly a few steps closer to him. "Could you come here for a moment? Yami? Do you hear me?"

"Hmmm?" Yami shifted a little staring out of the window. "I wish Nightfall would come back soon..."

Nightfall was his name for Aurora's yami. He didn't want to call her 'Yami Aurora', that didn't sound romantic at all, and since Aurora's name came from the dawn time, it felt like a good idea to name her yami after the sunset. 'Nightfall' hadn't objected, actually she was just flattered and thought that the name was quite fitting.

Sugoroku sighed. "She just left, Yami. Now... would you come to help me with one thing? Time will go faster if you do something, and... I'm actually planning a surprise for Nightfall..." He chuckled softly. _Although I doubt that she'll like this surprise..._

"Hmmm?" Yami blinked slowly. "Surprise..."

"Yes, that's right... Come here now, will you... away from the window. I'll tell you everything about how you can make her _really _happy..."

Yami got slowly up from his chair, still staring out. Sugoroku reached out his hand and grasped that of Yami's, drawing him away from the window. "Yes, a surprise... Come now..." He was talking slowly and soothingly, as if to an animal that felt itself threatened. "Come now, good boy..."

He shuddered a little as he thought what might happen if _Yami_ felt himself threatened. Normally Yami would never do anything to harm him, but this wasn't normally. He still remembered what had happened to Anzu, and few days ago the ex-Pharaoh had actually hit his _aibou_ who had been in his beloved Nightfall's way. Not that Yuugi had cared, he had had Aurora to comfort him.

He led Yami to the kitchen and told him to sit down. Nervously licking his lips he took a glass from the table and gave it to Yami. "You see, I'm going to arrange a surprise party for her, and I thought that you could taste this new drink and tell me if it's good..."

Yami glanced at the glass once and took then a sip. With a shrug he placed it on the table. "Doesn't taste like anything... Nothing does when she... she's... not here..."

Feeling strangely intrigued Sugoroku watched as the tri-coloured head nodded few times before Yami collapsed down on the table.

"Well... _that_ was fast." _I hope this stuff truly _is_ harmless..._ He picked the glass up from the table and looked at it suspiciously. He couldn't help but feel a little shocked about how easily a kid of Mokuba's age could get stuff like that into his hands.

Well, if Mokuba was going to use it on his 'niisama', it would quite surely be totally safe. With a shrug he left to upstairs.

"Yuugi? Could you come here for a moment? I have something to show to you, something that Aurora will surely like..."

Twenty minutes later he stopped his van outside the apartment where the twins lived. That was where Jou and Honda had spent most of their time lately, and quite certainly they would be found from there also now.

He frowned a little as he looked at the silent house. Anzu, Shizuka and Mai were supposed to have taken care of the boys by now, but there wasn't any sing of them. After waiting for a few minutes he got out of the car and walked to the house. The front door wasn't locked so he stepped inside. By now he was able to hear the sounds of... a fight?

"Will you guys STOP THAT!" Definitely Mai's voice, and she sounded quite pissed off.

The living room of that apartment had obviously been turned into a battlefield. At the moment, the boys were rolling on the floor, Mai was screaming at them from the top of her lungs, Shizuka looked like she was ready to cry, and Anzu was hovering on the background, as if trying to decide whether she wanted to interfere or not. When she turned to look at Sugoroku, he understood why, there was a huge bruise on her cheek.

"What..." He stared at the scene quite dumbfounded.

Anzu sighed. "They're fighting over which one of the twins is more beautiful."

Sugoroku blinked. "But they look exactly the same."

"Exactly my point..."

"Listen to me!" Mai was obviously on the edge of it. "What do you think the girls will do when they come home and see that you've destroyed everything here? They'll probably throw you out, that's what I'd do!"

That caught the fighting boys' attention. "No way..." Jou stared at her with wide eyes. "Maryann wouldn't do something like that... She's a real angel..."

Honda snorted. "Nothing to be compared to my Susan..."

"Nothing, huh?" The fight was about to begin again, but Mai grasped Jou's hand and dragged him away from Honda with Shizuka's help, as Anzu and Sugoroku took a firm hold of Honda.

"She's more beautiful," Honda muttered through clenched teeth. Suddenly he turned to stare at Sugoroku with flaming eyes. "Say that she's more beautiful!"

"No! Mary is the most beautiful woman ever born!" Jou struggled in the girls' grasp and threw them easily aside. "Say that she's more beautiful!"

"No, Susan is...!"

"Maryann...!"

Sugoroku glanced at the glowering boys, and cut them off as they were about to begin shouting at each other. "Of course she is," he said calmly, and the boys turned to look at him. "Why do you have to fight over such a self evident matter?"

While the boys blinked slowly, trying to process this in their at the moment not so fast working brains, Anzu and Mai took the chance and grasped two glasses from the table.

"Here," Anzu said, placing the other into Honda's hand. "You seem to be quite out of breath, why don't you take a drink?" Still trying to figure out the reason for the fight, Honda emptied the glass absentmindedly.

"Quite bland stuff," Jou muttered drinking from the glass Mai had offered him. "Hey... now I know! It _is_ self evident, but that idiot still doesn't understand it! He keeps... keeps on claiming... and I have to... make him... Hey, whatcha doin'?" Strange, Honda had obviously decided to go to sleep on the floor. And it was strange too how dizzy he was feeling... how... Sugoroku caught him as he too fell down.

Mai stared at the sleeping boys angrily. "I really wouldn't care if they kept on sleeping the rest of my life," she muttered darkly as they began to carry them to the van.

The next one on their list was Malik, and that, luckily, went without problems. Rishid and Isis carried the sleeping Malik to the van, and after giving few last-minute orders to Rishid, Isis jumped on too. The van was getting quite crowded, but once they'd get to Seto and Mokuba they would have another car too.

First, it was Ryou and his yami's turn.

Standing behind their door, Anzu and Mai shared one nervous glance before ringing the doorbell. It took some time, but finally Ryou came to open the door, looking quite dreamy.

"Hi!" Anzu smiled at him, trying to sound normal and not so nervous as she felt herself to be.

"Oh, it's you..." Ryou sighed. "I hoped that Pearl had come back already... although she has a key, why would she ring... unless she had lost it..." He kept on muttering under his breath as he wandered back into the apartment, forgetting the door open.

Inside, Bakura was sitting on a chair, staring at the television, although he obviously wasn't following the program.

Anzu suppressed a giggle. "I wouldn't have believed that I'd ever see Yami Bakura watching Teletubbies..."

Mai only shook her head in amusement. "Hey guys!" she said loudly, but neither of the boys paid any attention to her. "We thought that now that you're all alone, we might use the chance to tell you how to really impress your loves..."

Ryou turned to look at them, looking vaguely interested, while Bakura kept on staring at the television.

"It's seems that he's just got the 'treatment'," Mai whispered to Anzu, who nodded.

"So," she continued, going to the kitchen and taking two glasses from the shelf. "Why don't you sit down, take a drink, and listen to what we have to say..."

Few minutes later, with the help of the others, they were trying to smuggle the sleeping boys to the downstairs without neighbours noticing anything - which wasn't that easy since Ryou lived on the sixth floor.

So it was, finally, Otogi's turn. He turned out to be the most problematic case...

First of all, to their great surprise, Otogi hadn't been at his apartment. After spending some time wondering what to do, they decided to go to check if he was working. When they finally found him, it was at his company, surrounded by strict security and appearing to be in quite sharp state. He received them quite politely, but they could see that he was suspicious; anyway he well knew that - for some incomprehensible reason - they didn't like his Azura, who, as he told them, was the light of his days, best thing that had ever happened to him, gentle and loving and beautiful and smart and more charming than any dice could ever be. At this point Shizuka looked like she was going to choke, and Anzu got a bad coughing fit.

Shortly put, they decided that it wasn't necessarily a good idea to offer him some strange drink which would make him to lose consciousness in the front of his security guards, and after they realized that he wasn't going to leave anywhere without the guards, they bid their farewells.

Isis sighed. "Damn... If we don't get him today, I don't know when we'll have another chance..."

"Yeah, but what can we do?" Anzu glanced at the building behind them and winced as she saw the guards staring after them suspiciously. "It's not as if we'd have any chance to get him as long as he's in there, and it seemed that he wasn't going anywhere anytime soon."

They got to the van and squeezed into it. "I guess it's best to go to get Kaiba and Mokuba now," Sugoroku said as he started the car. "Anyway, if we succeed in six cases out of seven, that's quite well, you know."

At the Kaiba mansion, Mokuba was already waiting for them. He stared out of the window to the street tapping impatiently the armrest of his chair with his fingers, his brother's laptop and a small bag with other necessary things beside him. Every now and then he glanced at his sleeping brother, a small frown on his face - a frown that was strikingly similar to that of his brother's when everything wasn't going as he had planned. A frown, which made the employees of Kaiba Corp. hope that whatever it was that had gone wrong wasn't their fault.

"What the hell's taking them so long?" he muttered under his breath. _Wouldn't it just make this day if they've screwed this up..._

He looked once again at Seto, who was lying on a couch, snoring slightly. At first he had hoped - no, actually he had been sure - that he'd be able to overcome the effect of the mascara without having to use the drug, but as it was...

He sighed. Nothing had worked. He had even talked Seto into a duel, since he had thought that doing something what Seto really enjoyed might help him to recover, but no. Seto had dueled with him, all right, but his thoughts had clearly been on something else, and there hadn't been any strategy in his playing. He had just played the cards he had in his hand, not paying any attention to them, and suddenly Mokuba had found it really hard to keep the game going on - as it was, he could have won in a moment.

For a while he had thought that there was still some hope when he had noticed how Seto stopped playing for a while to stare at a card he had in hand. He had hoped, very fervently, for it to be a Blue Eyes White Dragon, but that hope was crushed when Seto had played the card with a sigh. "There is nothing more beautiful than red hair," he had muttered, staring at the Harpy Ladies. At that point Mokuba had given up and offered his brother a drink.

_Harpy Ladies,_ he thought with a snort. _Wonder when he's got that card... Not that it weren't fitting for that old harpy..._

Just then he saw a car driving to the yard. _Finally!_ He bounced up and run to the door.

"What the hell took you so long?"

"Language, Mokuba..." Anzu started to say, but Mokuba cut her off, ignoring her, as they entered the house.

"Niisama's been sleeping for an _eternity_ by now! I was afraid you wouldn't come at all..."

"We had some... problems," Mai said. "Especially with Otogi."

Mokuba glanced at her. "So you didn't get him?"

Mai shook her head. "No, we didn't. Well, we'll just have to come up with something else later."

They carried Seto out of the mansion and into a limo that was waiting by the side door.

"Can't ride in an ordinary van even when he's unconscious," Sugoroku muttered as he stumbled under the CEO's weight.

Mai grinned. "I'm not complaining. I've always wanted to drive a limo..."

The other's glanced at her hesitantly.

"You... drive?" Anzu said. "Can't anyone else..."

"Who? Does any of you even have driver's license?" Mai was grinning even more widely. "And we're not getting a chauffeur," she continued as she noticed that Mokuba was going to say something. "We can't really trust anyone."

After a moments silence Sugoroku shrugged. "So, one of you comes with me and the rest with her." With that he began to walk towards his van.

"Me!" Before anyone else had had time to say anything, Shizuka was running after him. "I'll come with you, jiichan!"

Anzu and Isis glanced at each other.

"Maybe we'll survive this..." Anzu muttered.

"I'll offer a prayer to my namesake."

* * *

I don't know who of the YGO cast have driving licenses and who don't, but, technically, Anzu and Shizuka are too young, and Isis... well, she just doesn't have a driving license in this, okay?

As for the Teletubbies... No idea where _that_ came from. ^^;;

Btw... when I was writing this I thought that Nightfall sounded vaguely familiar. I just remembered from where I knew the name. There's a book called _The Legend of Nightfall, _it's by Mickey Zucker Reichert. Really good book, although I don't remember much about it... This piece of poetry came to my mind, though:

'Lock up your children after dark,

Lest Nightfall find an easy mark.

For safety ends at twilight's close,

And darkness comes where Nightfall goes.'

I _think_ it was like that... Wonder why random pieces of poetry always stuck to my mind. ^^;;


	4. The Great Escape

Wow. This chapter turned out pretty long. There's nothing of the girls in this, I decided that this is long enough without them.

**A big thank-you to all who have reviewed! ^^**

Ethelflaed: *grin* Solid stones _are_ hard... hope you didn't hurt yourself too badly. And that _Kaiba_ didn't... ^~

Kauly123: Thanks for reviewing. Here comes the next episode, hope you're going to like it too. ^^

Pikachumaniac: Yuki... with an ax... O_o Okaaay... And yes, I know, I know... One of my favorite stories has _really_ short chapters, but they're still quite amazing.

Chibizoo: *blink* Masterpiece? Flatterer... but it's okay, feel free to flatter me as much as you want to. ^^ Anyways, I'm really glad that you like this. ~Posted a fic for your contest, btw. ^^ Hope you got it... Not any particularly magnificent fic, but anyways. ^^ (I know, I'm once again overusing these smileys... ^^)

Kaz: I know, it'd be funny to keep them like this, but I'm not that cruel... Y'know, I have myself problems in getting over the mascara thingy. ^^;

Wildcard: I'm a genius when I sleep. ^^ And unfortunately that's the only time... and yep, I guess I'd better be thanking the Sandman, especially if he does remind at all Neil Gaiman's version. O_o As for the names: most of them are just names that I thought might suit Mary-Sue's. In Pearl's case, first I came up with the name Pearl, and then I remembered Black Pearl and thought it might be fitting for the yami. And~ the computer is partially inspired by Sailor Moon. ^^

Opal Shadow: ^^ Well, thank _you_ for reviewing _my_ story. Good to hear you're having fun with it. (It's been quite fun to write, too.) *grin* So people actually do read bios.

**Disclaimer:** No no no... Don't own. Go away. (Talking to the lawyers here, not to the readers. ^^)

* * *

**Chapter 4: The Great Escape**

There are some places in the world, even in the densely populated countries like Japan, of which no one has ever heard about, small one-horse towns leading their own lives separate from the surrounding world and quite forgotten by it.

This town, not so far away from Domino City, was one of those places. Trying to remember the town's name Anzu stared sleepily out of the car window at the silent streets on which no one was walking - well, it _was_ way past midnight, anyway. The journey had gone fine, surprisingly fine keeping in mind who was driving their car. Of course, there was a good explanation for this. Mokuba, who was currently sleeping soundly, head on his brother's lap (who was also still fast asleep) and feet on Anzu's, had refused to tell Mai exactly where they were going, and so she had been forced to follow Yuugi's grandfather who really didn't seem to be in any hurry to reach their destination. The only problem with this was that it made Mai extremely grumpy, and they had traveled in chilly silence.

_Well, I guess that's better than to be traveling towards a hospital with sirens hooting,_ Anzu thought with a small smile.

They saw Sugoroku turning into the yard of an old wooden two-story house. Mouth set in an angry line Mai pressed her foot on the accelerator speeding up as she followed him. For one mad moment Anzu was afraid that she was going to crash into Grandpa's van, but just then Mai moved her foot to the brake. The tires screeched angrily, Mokuba almost fell down to the legroom, and Isis very nearly hit her head against the windshield as the car suddenly stopped, just few inches - or so it seemed to the passengers - behind Grandpa's van.

Mai flung her door open and stomped away from the car without a word. Outside, Sugoroku and Shizuka gave her a long look but wisely said nothing. In silence they began to carry the boys into the house.

"_This_ is a big place," Shizuka whispered softly looking around in awe. The hall was vast and spacious, and the living room that could be seen through the door seemed to be quite huge. There was very little furniture in the rooms, which probably made them appear even bigger.

Mokuba snorted quietly. "If you think this is big, you really should see the Kaiba Mansion. Although..." his eyes darted to the stairs that lead to the upstairs, and a strange gleam lit up in them, "I bet there's a lot of interesting stuff up there in the attic..."

"There might be," Mai said, "but why don't you make yourself useful and keep the cellar door open, I don't want to stand here all day - or night - carrying these." She grunted a little as she tried to get a little better hold of Honda. "Honestly, they don't look _this_ heavy..." she muttered, still feeling quite cranky. The one time she got behind the wheel in a limo like that... Life really wasn't fair.

"Sure." Mokuba dashed to the door and kept it open as the others carried the boys to the cellar. They had decided that that would be the best place to keep them; it was relatively dry and warm place for a cellar and, most importantly, it had a door that could be locked. They had some blankets with them, so that boys wouldn't have to lie on the bare ground, and besides that, few handcuffs and chains. Anzu and Shizuka had at first opposed such 'extreme measures', as they put it, but finally they too had agreed that it was quite reasonable.

After they had the boys chained as securely as possible they left them to sleep the drug away and went, finally, to bed as well.

...

Once the morning came, Sugoroku was the first to wake up. He had always been an early riser, and the older he got, the less sleep he seemed to need. He left the others to sleep and found his way to the kitchen that luckily was equipped with a working refrigerator. After having a quick breakfast, he decided to go to see how the boys were doing. Anyway, they probably were awake by now and they would need breakfast too.

The door creaked a little as he stepped into the cellar, where he was immediately greeted with a chorus of angry voices.

"What in Ra's name you think you're doing?" Yami bellowed shaking his fist, as Seto sprung to his feet, demanding to be freed at once, or otherwise he'd make sure that the Kame Game Shop would be ruined for good. Jou was shouting something about treacherous backstabbing friends, accompanied by Honda (well, Sugoroku found it a little comforting that they were for once on the _same_ side of an argument), Malik was describing quite graphically what he was going to do to his captors at the first chance (he had clearly been hanging around his yami too much lately - although, how'd he be able to avoid that?). Bakura was threatening the old man with the Shadow Realm, and even Ryou informed him with determination that, although he was in principle against violence, he would not hesitate to do what ever was needed to get back to his love. The only one quiet was Yuugi; he was crying. Every now and then he stopped the waterworks for a moment to sob quietly "I want my Aurora..."

Sugoroku stared at them with a growing headache. "I..."

"...to treat a Pharaoh like this! If you imagine that Nightfall will let you get away with this..."

"... and after that I'll rip off your limbs one by one and roast them on a fire!"

The headache was really getting bad. He rubbed a little his temples, frowning at the boys. "Be qu..."

"...finally found someone to love and then my _friends_..."

"Be QUIET for a moment, will you!" Quite miraculously, everyone did fell silent. Sugoroku sighed as he watched them. _If this is going to continue for long, I'll go nuts..._ "We are just trying to help you," he said slowly and soothingly. "After a couple of days..." He blinked.

The eye of Horus had flashed on Yami's forehead. Faster than one would have believed a man of his age to be able to move, he rushed out of the cellar, just when he heard Yami's voice from behind him.

"MIND CR..." The cellar door slammed shut.

"Oh my." He leaned against the door, feeling his heart beat wildly - a little too wildly. _I really don't need shocks like that..._

"What...?"

He turned to look and saw Isis, Mai and Mokuba staring at him with wide eyes.

He took a deep breath. "They're awake," he said nodding faintly towards the cellar door.

...

In the cellar, eight pairs of eyes stared at the door in sullen silence. Soon the silence was broken with a loud crash, Seto had thrown an old broken vase against the opposite wall. As if that had been a mark they had agreedon, everyone began to mutter aloud.

"...ruin them for live, that's what I'll do..."

"I can't believe this..."

"...backstabbing, treacherous..."

"I want my Aurora!"

"I can't believe this. I just can't believe this. I can't..."

"Be quiet, Pharaoh, _I_ believe you with one saying."

"Don't talk to me like that, tomb thief."

"Hn. And what are you going to do about it?"

"...pop out their eyes and make them..."

"Baka."

"You're one to talk."

"...double-crossing, deceitful, traitorous, dishonest..."

"I don't have time to lose on the likes of you. I have to come up with a way to get back to my beloved Nightfall... I just can't believe..."

"You've _said_ that already."

"Shut up tomb thief. I'm trying to think here."

"...I'm gonna skin them alive..."

"Think _quietly_ then, if you can."

"...disloyal, false, untrue..."

"Hn. You have a larger vocabulary than I'd have believed, mutt."

"It's not nice to do such things to others but if they don't let us go soon, I'll help you."

"...devious, perfidious, fraudulent..."

"Much larger..."

"...lying false-hearted bastards!"

"I want my Aurora..."

"Finally!"

Yami's eyes snapped to Bakura. "What do you mean fi..." The said eyes widened. "You're free!"

"Indeed. Did you really think it'd be a problem for me to pick this lock?" He threw the handcuffs away. "Although your constant babbling _did_ make it difficult..." He walked to the door and looked at it thoughtfully. Suddenly the room was totally quiet, even Yuugi's sobbing had ceased.

"Say, tomb th... umm, Bakura, could you pick my lock too?"

"Why?" Bakura kept on examining the door.

"Well... surely you wouldn't leave me here... We're both Egyptians, anyway."

"Hey, I'm also Egyptian! Could you pick my lock too?"

Bakura was pushing the door slightly, trying the lock. _Damn. I think they have barred this from the outside..._ "I don't really understand why I'd do it," he said to Yami and Malik. "Maybe you should learn to do it by yourself. Now you have good time to practice."

Everyone started to speak at once.

"Come on now, baka tomb thief! I'll give you whatever cards from my deck you want..."

"I'll give you enough money to buy all the cards you'd ever want!"

"You can have my Rod if you want to... although I don't seem to have it now with me..."

"Surely you'd help your own hikari..."

"I'll give you Mr. Feathers..."

"I'll give you Yuki!" [1]

Jou and Honda were desperately trying to come up with something they had that might interest Bakura. Unfortunately, they didn't face any success.

"...gold and diamonds..."

"Yuki _and_ Dark Magician!"

Bakura sighed and rolled his eyes. "Shut _up_ now." He turned to glare at others. "If I want money, I'll steal it, and the same goes for cards. I don't have any use for rods or stuffed animals either... All I want is to get back to my Black Pearl."

"But maybe we could help you in that!" Yami leaned forward as much as his chains allowed him to. "You see, if we _all_ escape at the same time, you'll have a much better chance to fly, since they have to try to catch us all!"

Bakura thought about that for a moment. "Good point," he admitted finally, albeit reluctantly. He walked to Yami and started to work on his chains.

He was just picking the lock of Yuugi's handcuffs when they heard some noise from the other side of the door. All others but Yuugi and Jou were already freed. They had been wondering how they'd get the door open, but now everyone fell silent, listening carefully.

"Hey!" Mai's voice. "If we open the door to bring you some food, do you promise not to use your shadow powers against us? ...As far as I'm concerned, you could very well fast for a few days, but the others want to feed you..."

Yami blinked. What a chance. "Of course we promise," he shouted quickly. "What good would it bring, anyway, to mind crush you if we're still in chains?"

There was a moment's silence, during which they could hear silent voices from the other side. Bakura finished quickly his work with Yuugi's lock.

"Hey!" Jou whispered fervently, rattling his chains a little. "Don't forget me!"

Just then the door creaked open. "Sorry, fella!" Bakura shouted as he ran with the others towards the gateway to freedom. For a split second shock registered on Mai's face, then she was pretty much run over.

"Don't leave me here, guys!" Jou yelled after them, but he received no response.

"Shit." He fell down to sit on the floor, tugging his chains halfheartedly. "Backstabbing, treacherous..." He sighed. "So unlike my Maryann."

"To the outdoor!" Yami was shouting, pointing at the said door.

"I see it very well, thank you," Bakura muttered, dashing past him.

"What..." Sugoroku and Anzu appeared by the living room's door, carrying food. It took a small moment for them to realize what was going on... Mai was lying on the floor, shrieking 'Catch them!', and a bunch of boys was running out of the cellar like horses to summer pasture. The moment wasn't long, though. Dropping the trays they snatched Yuugi just when he ran out of the door and pushed him back to the cellar slamming the door shut behind him.

"Hey!" Yuugi scrambled back to his feet and banged the door with his fists. "Let me out of here! Let me out! Yami! Yami, help me!"

Unfortunately his yami was running far from the house at the moment.

"Damn, damn, damn, damn, _damn_!" Mai jumped up from the floor. "I _knew_ this was going a little too easily..." The others had already run after the boys, and quickly she too sprinted after them.

...

He really, really, _really_ didn't understand why he had agreed to buy his daughter a dog as a birthday present. Not that he had anything against dogs in general, and he had to admit that this one was quite a nice little puppy, but... he should have known that after few weeks she would grow tired of taking care of it. Well, of course she did take care of it _most_ of the time, but if the dog, say, relieved itself on the kitchen floor, she would hardly be the one to clean it up, or if the dog decided that it really had to have a walk around six am, she only tugged her blankets tighter around herself.

So, here he was, walking in the empty streets on a Sunday morning, when all sensible people were still fast asleep, with a dog that just couldn't seem to be able to decide which bush would be best suited for its uses. Honestly, he hadn't known that dogs could be this picky.

"Hurry up, will you," he muttered, trying to sound stern, but now that he had woken completely up, he really wasn't that angry anymore. The small dog sniffling busily in the bushes was cute, he had to admit that, and it was a beautiful morning. Everything bathed in the soft light of the first rays of the sun, the birds were singing and the air was fresh... He inhaled deeply. Yes, maybe it wasn't such a bad thing, after all, to be up this early...

"...Catch them...!"

He blinked. What was that? As if someone... The door of an old house that had been abandoned for long was suddenly flung open and a group of teenage boys ran out of it. He stopped on his heels staring in bewilderment as three girls, one young boy and an old man dashed out of the door as well, running after the boys who had scattered on the streets... two of them running actually towards him.

"Out of my way!"

A boy with tri-colored hair and a wild look in his eyes darted past him giving him a shove in the process. He stumbled a little and stared after the boy. There had been some weird picture on his forehead... but... it had seemed to _glow_... Where did the young people get tattoos like that?

"Don't block the road, idiot!"

Another boy ran past him giving him an angry glare, since he and the dog _were_ pretty effectively blocking the pavement. Hastily he drew the barking dog closer to himself. "Sorry..." he found himself muttering. The boy's glare had really been what he called unnerving.

"Wait niisama!"

He backed away from the pavement as he saw the young boy running towards him with a brown haired girl. The girl flashed him an apologetic smile as she passed him. "I'm sorry, sir, we're having some problems..."

He nodded dumbly after the girl, not knowing what to say - and not having time to say anything in any case.

He could see the wild-eyed and wild-_haired_ boy glancing over his shoulder at his pursuers.

"You'd better stay away from me or I'll send your souls to the Shadow Realm for eternity!"

He blinked. This whole affair was starting to feel quite unreal. He couldn't help but wonder whether he was really awake, or still lying in his bed having some weird dream. _I knew I ate all too much yesterday,_ he thought absentmindedly.

Just as he was going to continue his way one more girl, this one with beautiful blond hair, sprinted out of the house.

"I'm going to show you Shadow Realm, baka Pharaoh," he heard her muttering as she passed him.

For a moment he stared after them and shook then slowly his head. He had never realized how weirdly people acted this early. Next time he would just tug the blankets around himself too... maybe his wife would take care of the dog from now on.

...

Bakura glanced over his shoulder while running. Good. It seemed that he had managed to lose his pursuer - which really hadn't been difficult at all. The lil' sister of the Pharaoh's guard dog really wasn't anything compared to the soldiers he had used to fool in ancient Egypt.

He kept on running for a while just for sure before slowing down. Great. He was free. Maybe he'd someday get his revenge on those who had dared to imprison him, but for now he would have to go to see how his pretty Pearl was doing. It had been over _half a day_ since he'd last seen her... Seen the beautiful black hair flowing in the wind, the deep dark eyes which held the greatest mysteries the world had ever known, the flawless alabaster skin that was so soft to touch... Oh, how he longed to run his fingers through that hair, feel the silky locks again...

He sighed dreamily. The day Black Pearl came back to him had to be the happiest in his life... or death, to be exact. Although it was a little strange that he didn't remember anything about the times in ancient Egypt when they'd been together. Well, it didn't matter. What mattered was that he would soon be together with his dark angel again.

He stopped walking for a moment to think back to that wonderful day. They had been in the park, Ryou had been in control... He remembered his host opening his eyes and looking at the black haired angel who was admiring him... and... He frowned a little. Well, if it was this difficult to remember what had happened few weeks ago, maybe it wasn't so strange that he didn't remember what had happened 3000 years ago.

He had a vague feeling that he had been angry at Pearl first. Why, he couldn't understand... But he did remember... how he had been walking away from Pearl and she had run after him and grasped his hand and looked into his eyes... She had so beautiful eyes... eyes... Uh. He was starting to feel a little dizzy. This strange dizziness was getting quite familiar to him nowadays, but Pearl said it was nothing to worry about and anyway, she always made him feel better just with her beautiful eyes and gentle smile...

Smile... He rubbed his temples softly. Why was thinking suddenly so difficult? Her beautiful smile... He would give her anything, just anything to make her smile... The most beautiful jewels he could steal, anything she wanted, everything he had, even his Ring... his... He blinked. ...Ring?

_What the hell I'm thinking about?_

He closed his eyes, trying to think. _Of course I'd give her... my Ring? My Millennium Ring... but if she wanted... If she wanted it, what else I could do?_

The very idea of denying Black Pearl anything felt quite horrible. But still... so did the idea of giving his Ring to anyone. _Anyone_.

Just then he saw a boy running past few blocks away. A very familiar boy, in fact. "Ryou?" On impulse he sprinted after the other. "Ryou wait!"

It was easy for him to catch the other boy, as it was, he was much faster than his host.

"Ryou, wait. Where are you going?" He grasped the other's shoulder and stopped him.

"Let go!" Ryou turned around and hit him in the chest. In surprise he almost did let go. Ryou hitting him? That was... absurd.

"Let go of me!" Ryou squirmed in his grasp, and he captured quickly the smaller boy's wrists with his hands.

"Ryou listen..."

"Let go let go let go..." Ryou struggled desperately, trying to kick him, and getting suddenly angry he shook the other boy strongly.

"Quiet! Keep quiet I said! What the hell's wrong with you?"

"I..." Ryou was all but crying now. "I need to get to Pearl... I need..."

Bakura blinked. This was... weird. Now that he came to think about it, Ryou had been quite obsessed about Pearl lately, although he hadn't paid much attention to that. Anyway, he had been spending all his time with Pearl's yami, who... _Waitaminute._ _I... I can't be as obsessed about her yami as Ryou is about her, can I?_

Unnerving thought. But he couldn't deny that the urge to get back to Black Pearl was _very_ strong... Suddenly he remembered what Sugoroku had said at that cellar where they had been imprisoned. _We are just trying to help you..._ He blinked again.

"Maybe we should go back there... they might know something about this that I don't," he muttered, thinking aloud.

"Umm... You can go back if you want to, but let me go, okay?" Ryou looked at him hopefully.

Bakura gazed for a moment at his desperate looking hikari and shook then his head.

"Nope." With one swift move he threw Ryou on his shoulder. "We're going back together."

"Noooo!" Ryou wailed, hitting his back with his fists. "Put me down! Put... me... _down_!"

"Shut up, yadonushi," Bakura muttered angrily, feeling thankful that it was still so early that there was no one walking on the streets making awkward questions. Of course, just then a man with a dog appeared from behind a corner.

Bakura glared at him while walking past.

"This is none of your business," he hissed as menacingly as he could.

The man stared at him blankly, ignoring Ryou's pleas for help. "Don't worry, I'm not interested," he muttered.

...

"It's a miracle that no one has called police yet," Isis muttered as she dragged with Sugoroku's help her cursing, screaming and tied brother into the house. "We really should have gagged him..."

"They still have time to do that," Sugoroku muttered darkly as they threw Malik into the cellar, somehow managing to keep Yuugi inside as well. _God, I'm really too old for things like this,_ he thought, feeling himself quite miserable as he heard Yuugi's desperate begging from the other side of the door.

"I wonder where the others are..." Isis walked to the outdoor and took a look around. She saw Shizuka approaching on the street ran to her.

"No luck?"

Shizuka shook her head sadly. "No. I was trying to chase Bakura but... no luck, as you said. Anyway, I really don't know what I'd done if I had caught him... How about you?"

"Me and jiichan caught Malik but that's all... I don't know how the others are doing."

"Damn..." Shizuka sighed. "For a moment I almost believed that we'd manage to pull this off."

"I know. But at least we still have... Hey look! They're coming and I think they have Kaiba!"

Anzu and Mai really were approaching very slowly, staggering under Seto's weight. Mokuba was walking beside them, looking quite angry.

"They knocked my brother out!" he exclaimed as Isis and Shizuka ran to them.

Mai made a sound which was meant to be a snort but reminded more a gasp. "It was he or us... he ran to a dead end, otherwise we wouldn't have been... able... to catch him at all... and still it was pure luck... Would you mind helping a little?"

Isis and Shizuka took quickly hold of Kaiba as well, and together they carried him inside, lowering him on the floor in the front of the cellar door.

"So." Anzu sighed as she looked at him. "Now we're missing, besides Otogi, also Yami, Honda, Ryou and Bakura."

"You're missing me?" a voice interrupted her by the door. "Wow, I'm touched."

"Put me _down_, yami!"

"As you wish, yadonushi..."

Everyone turned look at the door just in time to see Bakura dropping Ryou down and closing the door quickly before the other boy managed to run out of it.

"Bakura! What..."

"The more I think about this thing, the more it starts to stink," Bakura interrupted Mai's question, trying to keep Ryou from reaching the door. He took a firm hold of the other boy's wrists and looked at the others, ignoring Ryou's protests. "What is going on here?" he asked gravely.

"Well..." Sugoroku glanced at the others. "This all started when those seven girls arrived and... they, ummm... kind of enchanted you all with their Millennium Mascara and..."

"Millen..." Bakura's eyes widened. Suddenly he remembered a scene from that day in the park. A silvery haired girl was clinging to Yami and telling him how she was his wife and the spirit of the Millennium Mascara, or something like that. "He wasn't married," he muttered. "I can swear that he wasn't married..."

A dangerous gleam lit up in his eyes. Those girls had dared to use their magics to enchant _him_, and probably had made him to act like a fool in the process. As soon as he'd get that beautiful... err, damned bitch into his hands he'd... kiss... no, uh... He shook his head, trying to get his thoughts into order. It was difficult though, he missed his Pearl _so_ much...

"Damn..."

Dragging Ryou after him he grasped Seto's collar with his other hand. "Open the door," he said to Sugoroku.

"But..."

"Open it!"

As Sugoroku obeyed him he stepped into the cellar dragging Ryou and Seto after himself. Sugoroku slammed the door close quickly before Malik and Yuugi could use the chance to fly.

"You'd better _not_ open that door before I tell you!" they could hear his voice from behind the door.

Mai blinked. "That... was kind of weird."

"I know," Sugoroku said as he barred the door again firmly. "But I'm not complaining..."

* * *

[1] Yeah... Pikachumaniac's stuffed animals are invading my fic... I just couldn't resist the temptation to write that line. ^^ It's by Yami (and the previous by Yuugi). Yuki is... Yuugi, would you tell the readers who don't know Yuki who he is?

Yuugi: *smiling brightly* Sure! Yuki is the stuffed seal I gave to Yami. (If you want to know his story, read PM's fic Kody.) Yami really likes him, by the way... actually... Can you keep a secret? *whispering* He's in love with that seal. That's my Yami for you. Loves inanimate objects... a card and a...

Yami Yuugi: *appears from nowhere and bends down to whisper to Yuugi's ear* Mr. Feathers... [If you don't remember who Mr. Feathers is, read the notes in the end of the second chapter.]

Yuugi: *flushing red* Oh, keep quiet about that, Yami! That's... different. Everyone has a favorite stuffed animal, there's nothing strange in that...

Yami: *eyebrows rise* Mmm~m...

Yuugi: *bright red* I... really have to go now. Bye!

...Damn. Look what you did, Yami... I'm not sure when I can get him back to my AN:s after that... Yami? *looks around* And now he's gone, too. Well... I guess it's no wonder after what I've put him through so far... which reminds me. Something I've been going to say many times but always forget. I realize that this fic has parts which could be called minor (well, I hope it's minor ^^;;) character bashing, but that is purely coincidental. *blinks* I mean... Coincidental. Where did that come from? What I mean is... I have nothing against any of the characters and I don't mean to bash anyone, I just can't resist the temptation to write... things.

Okay. When writing English becomes this difficult, it's time to go to bed. Gah. You wouldn't believe what that last sentence looked like after I wrote it for the first time...

Good night.

...Nope, not yet. One more note I always keep forgetting. As it is, I don't really have a beta for this story, and I know that my English skills are still far from perfect, so if you spot there anything... well, wrong/weird (I just _hate_ the English prepositions! -_-) feel free to tell me. Actually, _please_ tell me. ^^ Okay, now to bed.


	5. And Everyone’s back to Plotting

Have you ever noticed that Christmas breaks, as well as other vacations too, are magical? During their time, you can get _everything_ done that you didn't have time to do from all the studying... Writing fics you should get finished, reading that pile of books that's been waiting _forever_ in the corner of your room, taking a look on a certain research paper you have to finish next spring, and, well, the list goes on for ever.

In the end, the only things you do are sleeping, eating, and playing in the snow.  
...Okay, okay, and maybe writing some fics. ^^ *shrugs* So what. It's supposed to be _vacation_, anyway.

As always, many thankses for all the reviewers! ^^

Kauly123: *grin* Don't call Bakura cute so that he hears it... that might be dangerous. ^~ Anyways, thanks for the review. Glad that you liked it, and yes, we'll get to Seto eventually. He does have a small part in this chappy too.

Ethelflaed: Lol! Y'know, your reviews are always quite fun to read. ^^ Kaiba pulling a Superman... lol! again. You're ahead of me, it seems... I haven't managed to finish reading any real MS story. I started on one some time ago, but I couldn't force myself to read it to the end. *shudders at the mere thought of the said fic* ~Yeah, and thanks for the lil' correction. ^^  
And... I'm starting to get a feeling that there is at least _one_ evil Mary-Sue in this fic...

Neko-chan: Don't worry, writing fics like _Lamb_ is a _very_ good excuse for not reviewing. The best one I've heard actually... ^^ Have any idea of how much I adore that fic?  
*blink* Duty and responsibility? What are you talking about? Look here, isn't Felicia such a nice girl, perfect partner for Malik, and you'd want to ki~iiill...! *dodges the FPoD* Agh, don't kill _me_! I'll rid the world of them, I promise! Sooner or later, anyway...

Pikachumaniac: *blink* My reviewers are quite a bloodthirsty lot... ^^ Read the entire thing through again? Wow, it can't be that good... ^_^ (Y'know what? I tend to do that too. That thing that nobody needs to know about... ^^;)

Terra-fying: *grin* So, those of my reviewers who aren't bloodthirsty are flatterers... Not that I mind, at all. ^^ Thanks a lot for the review, hope you're going to like the rest of this fic too.

Opal Shadow: O_o Oh my. I... well... thank you for getting to the favorites! A very big fluffy warm thank-you sent to somewhere over the ocean. Glad to know you like this. ^^

* * *

**Chapter 5: And Everyone's back to Plotting**

The light of the morning sun did little to warm up the silence in the small room, which was probably chilly enough to make water freeze.

In Kame Game Shop nine girls were gathered around a table, some of them sitting by it, others leaning against the walls. Three of them looked positively maddened, five heartbroken, and one quite relaxed.

A glowering redhead threw an angry look at the composed one.

"You know, Azura," she muttered, "I know that _you_ have your beloved left, but you could at least _try_ to look a little more sympathetic."

"Oh Unity, calm down. I am sympathetic, of course I am," Azura smiled at her sweetly. "But I have to say that it is, after all, your own fault that..."

"Our fault!" Yami Aurora, a.k.a Nightfall shrieked. "What the hell you mean it's _our_ fault?"

Azura shrugged. "You obviously didn't have good enough control over your boyfriends, unlike me. I've been using the mascara intelligently, while you've quite overused it, so that the boys were constantly totally dimwitted. Mine had his wits with himself, and so he's safe."

"Intelligently, is it..." Nightfall muttered darkly. "So could you come up with something _intelligent_ to clear up this mess? -And will you two stop that whining and use your book!" she shouted at the sniffling twins.

"Oh, don't be so nasty," Maryann sobbed, "my heart is broken."

"And so is mine," Susan continued. "Besides, we've already used the Book."

"You have?" Black Pearl got up from her chair and leaned over the table to stare at the twins. "What did it say?"

"Nothing helpful, really. _To see thy love return to thee, sit back, relax, and take some tea_."

Unity closed her eyes, rubbing her temples. _Not exactly any Shakespeare, that book..._

Black Pearl blinked. "Why didn't you tell us that immediately?" she exclaimed. "Don't you understand? We don't have to worry or to do anything at all, all will work out on its own."

Maryann and Susan looked at her hope in their eyes. "Are you sure?"

"If the Book says so..."

Nightfall nodded. "I think that we'd better follow its advice."

For a moment they sat in silence. Then Felicia spoke up.

"Umm... Do you think I should make some tea for us?"

...

"Bldi bidhesh!"

"_Swallow_, Jou. It's easier to talk if your mouth is empty..."

Mai winced as she saw the blond boy shoving more bread into his mouth. With obvious effort Jou munched it few times and swallowed then.

"I'm _starving_! And I said 'bloody bitches'." He slurped the rest of his soup away.

"An indisputable comment," Malik snorted. "You got anything _intelligent_ to say?"

Jou was going to give him an angry punch, but Yuugi touched lightly his arm. "Take it easy, everyone... I guess we're all quite mad about this thing, but let's not fight now."

"Yuugi's right," Anzu said. "We need to come up with a plan..."

"Plan?" Jou looked up from his food. "That's easy enough. Get back to Domino and kick some ass."

"Oh, trust _you_ to come up with such an ingenious plan," Mai snorted, offering him a paper handkerchief. "You can't just go rushing back there... c'mon, take it!"

"What am I supposed to do with that?" Jou eyed the paper warily.

"Wipe your mouth with it. 'That's your handkerchief and that's your sleeve. Don't confuse the one with the other...' [1] God... sometimes I wonder why I bother." She sat down with a sigh.

"It's not that bad a plan, although a little crude. But, basically, that's what _I_ intend to do." Bakura got up from his chair and leaned over the table. "It's not as if that girl would stand a chance against me now that I know about their tricks."

"But you _don't_ know, that's the point!" Isis interrupted him. "We know about the mascara, but that's pretty much all. We don't know what other powers they have... and besides, now they have Yami... at least they don't have the Millennium Puzzle."

"They don't?" Jou stopped eating for a while and stared at Yuugi. "I mean, isn't that the Puzzle?" He pointed at the shining object that hung around Yuugi's neck. "So if Yuugi has it, why doesn't Yami?"

"Well..." Yuugi fingered his pendant gently. "You know that when Yami separates from me, his clothes are copies of mine, and so is the Puzzle. When we were imprisoned the Puzzles were taken away, and that 'copy' disappeared. The only way Yami will get it back is for him to go back to his soulroom and separate from me again. We actually tried it once, just to know how it works..."

He fell silent trying not to look as miserable as he felt himself. He _really_ didn't like this. Yami was in trouble, and _he_ would have to try to save him, and, well... that was the wrong way round. Suddenly he felt a hand squeezing his elbow and turned to look at Jou with a start.

"Don't worry, pal. We'll get him back."

"Yeah." Anzu smiled at him too. "Of course we will."

Bakura snorted. "And how are you planning to do that if you're not going back to Domino? Will your _Shining Friendship_ solve all the problems for us?"

Anzu frowned at him. "Oh, don't be a..."

"He's _right_," Malik interrupted her. "We have to get back there, and the sooner the better. The longer we wait, the longer _they_ have to make their plans. Let's just make a surprise attack, and they won't know what hit them before they're all having a picnic in the Shadow Realm."

"Calm _down_, little brother! I know you're angry, but this is not the right time for rashness. We need to come up with a _little_ better plan than that."

Isis and Malik spent some time glaring at each other, before they both gave up pretty much at the same time.

"Anyway, we have to go away from here," Ryou spoke up finally. "Yami and Honda can tell them where we are, and if we waste time, _we'll_ be the ones receiving a surprise attack."

"That's true," Sugoroku said. "So we have to get away from here. But where will we go?"

"To Domino, of course." The answer was self-evident to Bakura. "We can do the plotting on the way there."

"We _could_ do that," Ryou said thoughtfully. "Then, if we don't come up with anything on the way, we can go to, I don't know, maybe some hotel, and continue planning there, but at least we'd be in the right city then. I don't think that we should waste any more time, either."

"Not you too, Ryou," Mai sighed. "Is this 'wanting revenge' thing some side effect of the mascara or what?"

"Well, I don't know," Ryou muttered quietly, feeling a little angry and vaguely embarrassed as he thought about the past weeks. "But we have to do _something_ to those girls."

"I'm not sure if it's a good idea to go to Domino yet," Anzu said. "Maybe we should go to that hotel we passed on the way here."

"Why can't we..." Isis began to say, but she was cut off by an angry shout.

"Damned _idiots_!"

"What?" She turned to look at Seto, who was at the moment glaring at his laptop. "Something wrong?"

Seto turned his glare to her. "One way to put it. It seems that I haven't been paying much attention to my company lately and those... those retarded _idiots_..." He got abruptly up from his chair and shut down his computer.

"I obviously can't leave them on their own for a _second_. You do whatever you want to, but I have to get back to Kaiba Corp. _now_."

"But you can't!" Anzu shouted. "If Unity is there waiting for you, she'll just enchant you again and we have to start from the beginning."

"I don't have anymore time to waste on that girl! I'll get some assassin to take care of her..." He paused for a while. "Mokuba... you didn't hear that."

Mokuba, who had been lying on the floor, quite bored, looked up with a blink. "I have a selective hearing?"

"Yes."

"...Okay..."

"What if she has enchanted your employees? Your guards? And your assassins? ...Do you have assassins, Kaiba-kun?" Yuugi stared at him with wide eyes.

Mokuba pressed his hands on his ears. "I am not hearing this, I am not hearing this..."

Seto gave him an exasperated look. "Stop that."

"But you said..."

"I know what I said. Now try to be serious."

Mokuba looked at him innocently. "I _am_ serious, niisama."

Seto sighed. "Whatever. But I _have_ to go back there."

"So let's all go back!" Jou jumped up too, finally finished with eating. "I _know_ we can deal with those gals easily."

"Sit down, Jou." Mai looked at him angrily. "We can't just go back without knowing _anything_ about what's going on there!"

"Then let's go to that hotel, why don't we?" Anzu asked.

"Because I have to get back to D_omino_!" Seto shouted, earning an angry glare from Mai.

"Who cares about what _you_ have to do, you're not the only one who matters here!"

"Well, I agree with that, but I also agree with him," Bakura stated. "I'm not going to start to hide from some silly girls!"

"Umm... I think that Anzu..." Yuugi tried to say, but his voice was soon drowned under yelling. Yes... you're right, at this point our heroes seem to be slipping towards a fight. So, let's leave them with their entertainment for a moment. There are also other characters in this story about whom we're interested, right?

...

By now, all of the nine girls were sitting round the table. This time, four of them were quite relaxed - in fact, they were snoring. After all, they had been up all the night, first coming home late, then spending some frantic time running around searching for their beloveds, and then trying to come up with some kind of a plan.

"How long is this going to take?" Aurora whined silently.

"Who knows," her yami muttered.

Felicia tried to make herself more comfortable in her chair. "Mmm... maybe I should make us more tea..."

"Oh shut up."

Aurora looked at her yami disapprovingly. "Don't be mean to her..."

"I'm not mean, I'm just highly irritated..."

Just then they heard someone opening the front door.

"Honey? Are you home?"

Nightfall's eyes lit up.

"I'm right here, my dear," she shouted, jumping up.

"Beloved!"

Yami rushed to her and flung himself immediately on her neck. "Oh, I've missed you _so_ much..."

Nightfall tried to hold her smirk in check. "And I've missed you, dear... Now, let go, okay? There, that's better." She smiled at Yami who was staring at her with open admiration. "Now, could you tell us, dear, where the others are?"

Yami blinked slowly. "Others? Who cares about them? We're together, that's what matters..."

"Yes, yes, of course dear," Nightfall cut him off, winking at the other girls to keep silent. "But those who kidnapped you have to be punished, don't you agree? They hurt me, after all..."

Yami blinked again. This thought obviously hadn't crossed his mind before. "Oh... yes. I guess you're right." He frowned a little, trying to remember where they had been. "It was some small town... somewhere south from Domino. I don't know its name... There was some road sign... I think it said that it was 100 miles or so to Domino from there. I'm not sure. I managed to get a lift from a guy with a truck... Oh, yes, I almost forgot."

He glanced hesitantly at Nightfall.

"What?"

"Well... that guy was babbling all the time, and he really got on my nerves, and... when I told him that I was going back to the most wonderful woman ever born, he laughed and claimed that all women are an unfaithful lot, and if I've been gone long the chance of you waiting for me would be extremely small, and... well, he was getting on my nerves, and..."

"Yes... what?" Nightfall tried to keep her impatience in check.

"Well, I kind of mind crushed him and took his truck and it's parked there on the street," Yami said nervously. He had a feeling that Nightfall wouldn't necessary be happy about this.

"You drove a truck?" Aurora exclaimed, while Susan blinked and asked, "How can you _kind of_ mind crush someone?"

Nightfall walked to the window and looked outside. True enough, there was a truck parked by the house... She shook her head.

"We have to get rid of that before we have police knocking the door. Azura..."

"Yes, yes... I'll take care of it." Azura got lazily up from her chair and walked out.

Aurora was still staring at Yami in confusion. "I didn't know you can drive."

Yami shrugged. "I'm a quick learner."

The girls fell silent. The idea of Yami practicing driving with a truck on public roads was a little unnerving, even to them.

"Well, at least you got back in one piece," Nightfall muttered. She frowned a little as she looked at her loved one. "Are you feeling okay? You're a little pale..."

"Oh, I'm fine now that I'm with you." Yami smiled at her lovingly. "I just... feel a little... dizzy."

"Oh." Nightfall stared at him thoughtfully for a moment. "Wait a minute, love..."

Turning around, she took out her pocket mirror and mascara. Soon she was finished and turned again to look at Yami, who took one look at her, blinked, and spaced out.

Azura, who just walked back in, sighed. "What did I just tell you about..."

"Be quiet, I don't need you to teach me how to use my own Millennium Item," Nightfall snapped at her.

"I think that Azura has a point, yami," Aurora said hesitantly. "Besides, if you use it that much, he might grow immune..."

"I don't need _anyone_ to teach me how to use my own freaking mascara!" Aurora winced a little at her yami's exclamation and fell silent.

"Oh, calm down, everyone," Black Pearl cut in the conversation as she saw Azura opening her mouth with an angry frown. "We don't have time to fight. We have to come up with a plan to get the other boys back."

"You mean... drinking tea isn't enough anymore?" Maryann asked hesitantly.

"Oh god..." With an exasperated sigh Nightfall turned her back to the others, and gazed out of the window. _I can't stand those idiots..._ At least the truck had disappeared from the street without a trace.

"Very well." She turned back to the others and sat down. "Any suggestions?"

During the absence of his master, Rishid had come to an important conclusion. He really hated dusting. Still, after Isis and Malik had left, things had been quite quiet, and he had decided that he might as well do some cleaning up.

Dusting wasn't fun though - especially not when the house was full of all kind of more or less antique junk that really gathered dust. Right now he was standing on a stepladder, trying to wipe away the dust from the uppermost shelf of the bookcase, which was filled with everything else but books. He was just reaching for the furthermost corner, when he realized that the stepladder really wasn't that stable... Waving wildly with his feather duster he felt himself falling backwards. With loud crash he fell down to the floor, and everything went black.

Malik blinked. Something happened... something... Uh. _Rishid, what the hell did you..._

_/My, my, my... haven't I been waiting for this.../_

_/Yami! I don't know what you're planning but_ please _don't_ _start killing off people now!/_

_/What?/_ The voice in his mind was slightly amused. /_Do you mean that you_ don't _want to kill a certain beautiful blonde?/_

_/...On a closer, thought, I take my previous comment back./_

_/That's my boy./_

Yami Malik got up from his chair. "Have to go to toilet," he muttered to others, who were so engaged in their plotting (read: fighting) that they paid no attention to him.

_/They talk too much/_, he thought to his hikari as he walked out of the house.

...

In a quiet a park of our unnamed town, a very confused teenager sat on bench, trying to figure out how he had ended up there. Few hours ago, he had been walking on the streets of this strange town, determined to go to some girl called Susan, then he had started to feel quite dizzy, and now...

Now he was suffering from quite a severe memory block.

Susan?

Yes... He vaguely remembered some auburn haired, bimbo girl... and as weird as it was, he was almost sure that he had been living with her for some time.

And that was all.

He had no idea of where he was, how he had ended up in that place, who the hell that girl was, and exactly what had happened since that day in the park.

...At least he thought they had been in a park on the first day of their summer vacation.

Damn.

Well, it was a good thing he had few crumpled bills in his pack pocket. Maybe getting something to eat would help him to remember, it really was difficult to think when he was this hungry.

So... Honda got up from the bench stretching himself a little. First he'd get some food, and then he'd found out how he'd get back to Domino from... wherever this place was.

...

_/You're going to get us killed, I hope you realize that./_

_/Oh, have a little faith in me.../_

_/Yami! That was a red light!/_

_/Really pretty. Red's my favorite color... after black./_

_/God. I give up with you./_

_/Why haven't you ever told me how much fun this is? I'm starting to understand why you're so fond of your bike.../_

_/I haven't ever felt suicidal enough to do that... Look _out_, yami!/_

_/Calm down, I know what I'm doing. Besides, fat old ladies should be more careful when crossing streets./_

_/You're impossible. Just to let you know, I'm never going to let you anywhere near to my bike... Is that Honda?/_

Yami Malik slowed down a little and turned to look at a brown haired boy walking on the pavement.

_/Well, well, well... I do believe it is./_

He rode to the boy and raised his hand in mock greeting. "Taking a walk?"

"Wha..." Honda gave a start. He had been quite deep in his thoughts. "Malik! What are _you_ doing here?"

_/Hmm... I wonder how much he remembers.../_

"Getting home. Want a lift?"

"Well..." Honda eyed the blond boy suspiciously. There was something in Malik's smile that made him a little nervous, but this was a chance to get home so... "I guess. I have to get there somehow, and I don't even know where we are so..."

"Jump on, then."

As he climbed on, Honda took a look at the bike. "Don't you have a helmet?"

Malik shrugged. "Who needs helmets? Ready?"

"Yeah... this isn't your bike, is this? Where did you get this?"

"Found."

"Fou... ah!" Honda took a tight grasp of Malik's waist as the blond boy sped away, a little _too_ fast to his mind.

"Gah... Slow _down_ a little!"

"Oh shut up, you wanted to get home, didn't you?"

"Yeah, but..."

"Now... I wonder which way leads to Domino... Never mind, we'll find it sooner or later. This is such a small town..."

"What are you doing!" Honda shrieked as Malik took a sharp turn, and drove down stairs to a pedestrian street. "Are you nuts!"

_/He really should know the answer to that question by this time, don't you think, yami.../_

_/Shut up./_

* * *

[1] A quote from _My Fair Lady_.

Okay... I decided to cut this off here. I have a feeling that the next chapter will be quite short, but I wanted to get something sent to you before Christmas, so... *shrugs* We'll see. I try to get the next chappy out this year, but... we'll see. ^^

I don't really know what's going on with Azura... I've totally lost control of her. You wouldn't believe the things she's plotting behind my back... O_o And here I was thinking that I _know_ what I'm going to do with this fic.

I had an almost irresistible urge to make Yami Malik call Malik hikari-pretty here... wonder why. ^~

**Very Merry Christmas to everyone!** Here's little something I read from the back of one CD with Christmas carols (or the translation of it, to be exact):

"Have a peaceful Christmas!  
This is what they say, and go then to buy weapons for their children. I as well, in my worst pacifist-phase, bought for my son lots of tin soldiers, already killed.  
The real peace you won't get until the Christmas Eve, after you've eaten yourself under the table."

So... have yourself a merry little Christmas. Peace on Earth and so on. I have to go now to plot how to kill off my Mary-Sues. ^^


	6. Chapter 6

This turned out a little longer than I had thought. ^^ Be happy.

And, as always, thank you to the reviewers!

Ethelflaed: Umm... *tries to think* ... Burist! ^^ Hello in Sámi... or... well, there are over ten Sámi languages (I _should_ know how many, but can't remember) and that's hello in one of them. Don't ask me which. In one that's spoken in Finland... I think. Ibmel adde is good evening, and väärti is friend, that's all I know about that language. (Btw... how's that 'þ' pronounced...? ^^;)  
That... Mary-Sue thing... it was quite bad. *nods* You really have a future as a MS writer. ^^ And I know, there is an overdose of Mary-Sues in this fic, I'm suffering from it too. Good thing we'll soon start getting rid of them.

Innominate: Author alert? Wow. I'm honored... *bows* Anyway, glad that you like this, it has been quite fun to write too. Truth to tell, I'm not sure myself what'll happen to the mascara... The Crack of Doom is always an option. ^^ Btw, I've been thinking about the livejournal thing, and I guess I start one someday, well, next year. (And that gives me time to December 31, _2004_, of course... ^^;)

Terra-fying: Thanks! We all love praise, don't we? But I can tell you, it's not easy to keep track on all those characters... I drew kind of a timetable for myself to see what everyone's doing and when... although I seem to have misplaced it... ^^;; Poor Otogi hasn't really got enough attention lately, though.

* * *

**Chapter 6 (Title? Does this need a title? Umm... what about: The Approaching Doom?)**

"You sure you don't want me to take you home?"

"Yes... yes I'm sure, thanks..." Honda muttered as he stumbled away from the motorbike, taking a deep breath. Oh how he had missed the solid ground under his feet... He wasn't one to get shaken easily, but this ride was something he wanted to forget as soon as possible. "I'll walk from here."

"As you wish." Giving him one of his unnerving smiles Malik drove away.

_Huh._ Honda stared after him, trying to calm down a little. _Either Malik has turned even crazier than he used to be, or then I just got a lift... from someone I don't care to think about right now._

With another deep breath he started to walk towards home, legs still feeling quite shaky. As he walked, he tried to bring some order into his thoughts. This ride hadn't really helped him at all in trying to figure out how he had ended up in that place - in fact he felt even dizzier after it than he had felt before. He had a feeling that Malik knew more than he was telling, but... right now he rather did _not_ think about Malik.

So, what were the things he _did_ know?

One, they had been spending time in the park. Two, some girls had come there. Three, for some reason he had been living with one of those girls afterwards. Been... in love with her, as it seemed to be. Four... uh, there really was no 'four'.

Why the hell had he been so crazy about that girl? Sure, she was pretty, but that was all that could be said about her. She and her sister - yes, she did have a sister didn't she? One who was together with Jou - as strange as _that_ was. Well, anyway, they were both quite...

"...if Hiroto only returned..."

As soon as he heard the voice from behind himself he took a sharp turn and entered a shop he was just passing. As the door closed behind him, he turned to look out and saw two auburn haired girls walking past, so engaged in their chatting that they hadn't noticed anything.

"Welcome!" A voice behind his back made him start. "Can I help you?" He glanced over his shoulder at the bowing shopkeeper.

"Uh..." _What shop is this, anyway?_ He took a quick glance around. Children's clothes. _I don't think that I'm going to begin buying presents for my dear nephew right now..._ "I'm just, um, looking." Looking out again he noticed that the girls were already quite far away.

"Bye!" With a wave of his hand he ran out of the shop, leaving the bewildered shopkeeper staring after him.

The girls had stopped at the red light. He walked slowly closer to them, trying to look as nonchalantas he could, and not as if he were stalking someone. Luckily there were many other people on the streets as well, and he hid himself behind a middle-aged, quite _big_ woman and her shopping bags, listening carefully.

"I _know_ they will come back to us, sis, don't worry. But what _mean_ friends they have..."

"Yeah, you can say that again. I can't believe they kidnapped our loves like that. As if they didn't care at all about our feelings!"

The other girl sighed. "People are so selfish nowadays... they don't care about anything else but themselves."

"So true, so true."

The light turned green, and the girls continued their way in silence. Honda was forced to abandon his middle-aged shield since she was walking all too slowly. Trying to remain as far from the girls as he could while still within earshot, he strolled after them.

"How long do you think this will take?" another of the girls asked suddenly.

The other shrugged. "Dunno. I guess we'd better take much clothes with us, I'm afraid we have to stay at Aurora's for quite long."

Although he couldn't see her face, the pout was clear in the other's voice. "Boring..."

"I know. Maybe we should consult the Book again."

The other brightened up. "Yeah, let's do that! First thing as we get back to Aurora's."

"Oh, look at that cute lil' doggie!" another of the girls pointed at a woman with a spaniel who was just walking past them.

"Oh, how adorable..." the other girl started to turn around to look after the dog, and Honda froze in shock.

_Oh damn..._

The girl's eyes widened for a moment, then a wide grin appeared on her lips. "Hiroto! My love!" Arms wide she dashed towards him. Honda took one step back, gulped, turned then around and ran.

"Wait love, where are you going?" he heard the girl's voice from behind himself and ran even faster. He did find it a little ridiculous that he was running from two _girls_, but his instincts told him quite clearly that this was the smart thing to do.

Luckily, he was much faster than the girls, and soon he had left them far behind. Still jogging he thought about what he had heard, but it didn't make much sense. _What book they were talking about... and who's that Aurora? Gah, I wonder how others are doing..._

Just then he saw a phone box on the other side of the street.

...

Outside the Kame Game Shop, leaning against its wall, a lonely figure stood in a shadowed corner, staring through the window at a beautiful blonde girl who was talking with a girl with silvery hair. He knew that, sooner or later, the girl would leave the house and then... well, he was in no hurry.

A phone rang inside and the silvery haired girl answered it.

...

"Hello!"

Honda blinked. A girl's voice? What... "Uh, I... Is Yuugi there?"

There was a moment's silence from the other end, and then the girl's voice was back. "No... I'm afraid he's not. You can leave a message if you want to."

"Who are you?" Honda asked suspiciously. Right now he didn't really trust any strange girls.

"Oh, I'm Aurora... a friend of Yuugi's. Who are _you_?"

_Aurora..._ Honda almost hung up then. "Umm... Do you know where Yuugi is?"

The girl sighed. "No, unfortunately not... I really miss him too."

"Uhuh." Honda blinked, barely listening to the girl. There was something familiar in her voice... _A silvery haired girl crouching down beside Yuugi, dressed in a light blue summer dress... "My name is Aurora..."_

"Hey? Are you still there? Hello?"

"Oh... yes, yes I'm here," Honda blinked again few times. "I... uh, so you don't know anything about where Yuugi is?"

"No, I don't," the girl's voice sounded thoughtful. "Say, do I know you? You sound a little familiar..."

"No, no you don't. I, uh, have to be going now. Bye!" He hung up quickly.

_This is getting weird,_ he thought as he started to dial another number.

...

"I'm not still sure if it's wise to come here this soon," Anzu muttered as she stared through the car window at the streets of Domino City.

Mai shrugged. "Well, we are here now, so I guess it's too late to get any second thoughts."

_Second thoughts? These were my _first_ thoughts,_ Anzu thought sullenly, but didn't say anything.

"Although," Mai continued, glancing at Jou and Bakura, "I have to point out that we _are_ here now, and we _still_ don't have a proper plan."

Bakura shrugged as Jou smiled sheepishly. Bakura (sharing his body with Ryou to save room), Mai, Anzu and Jou with his little sister on his lap were sitting on the backseat of Kaiba's limo, Seto himself was driving and Mokuba sat on the front seat beside him. Sugoroku, Isis, and Yuugi were following them with the van.

"First we have to find out where they are, then we just take them down one by one," Bakura said. "Why are you making such a big problem out of this?" _I really should have followed Malik's example and left to take care of that bitch on my own,_ he thought a little angrily. _These fools won't get anything done_ ever. "Besides," he continued aloud, "it's quite possible that there are only six girls plus two yamis left for us now..."

"Yeah," Jou shuddered a little. "Malik has probably done his bit by now."

Just then Shizuka's cell phone began to ring. After some rummaging she found it from her bag and answered quickly.

"Hi..." her eyes widened slightly. "Honda! What... where are you?"

At this point she had gained everyone's attention.

"You... are you okay? I mean, you aren't anymore, uh, or are you ..."

"Gimme that." Jou snatched the phone from her hands. "Hi man. Back to reality?"

"...I guess..." Honda sounded a little confused. "Care to tell me what's going on?"

"Maybe..."

"Be careful Jou, this might be their tricks," Mai hissed at him.

"Oh shut up," he whispered back. "Do you think I'm stupid or what?"

Mai leaned back. "Do you really want to know?"

"Hah." Jou rolled his eyes at her and continued speaking with Honda. "Let me ask you one thing... What'd you say if I told you that as soon as I can I'm going to give a good spanking to a certain girlie called Susan?"

There was a moment's silence, then, "You'd better keep your hands off her." Before Jou had time to say anything, he continued, "If anyone's going to do something to her, it's me. Anyway, I... have a feeling that you have a _girlie _of your own to take care of."

Jou grinned. "So, you're back, aren't you? Where are you?"

"Somewhere in the middle of the city, I almost managed to get lost... where are _you_?"

"We..." Jou took a look around. "Hey, Kaiba!" he shouted. "Stop here!"

"We're just by that pizzeria where we've eaten many times... yeah, just the one... Can you come here? Okay, we'll wait here. Bye!"

"You do some fast decisions, mutt," Seto said looking over his shoulder.

"Indeed," Mai muttered. "You could have asked our opinion."

"Why?" Jou opened the door, pushed Shizuka out and jumped out as well. "Let's go to eat something. I'm starving. And..." he threw an angry look at his little sister, "you can start explaining to me why _he_ has your number."

Dragging Shizuka after him he entered the pizzeria, leaving the others to explain what was going on to those in the back of the van.

...

"Yeah, I'll be right back! Just get my stuff..." With a wave Felicia walked away from the game shop. They had decided that they all would move there, just for sure - or at least she and the twins would. Azura claimed that she was fine on her own, and although Unity had agreed to come to live with them she was most of the time away. The twins had left to get their things a little earlier, and Felicia had used this chance to speak with Aurora in peace.

Good thing it wasn't such a long way from the shop to where she lived... where Malik lived... She sighed. She missed her loved one so much... it did give her a little hope, though, that Yami had returned to Nightfall. Who knows, maybe her love would come to her soon too. She was prepared, too. Nightfall had insisted that they all would wear the mascara all the time... although she was sure that she didn't really need it. Surely Malik would stay with her even without some stupid make-up...

When she finally got home, she wasn't in any hurry to start packing. She wanted to spend some time in the empty house together with her memories. Oh, there were so many happy memories in this place... except those that involved Malik's irritating sister, scary servant, and, well, bloody hearts. She shuddered a little. Good thing she had made him realize how wrong _that_ was.

Just then she heard the front door closing. Someone had entered the house... hadn't she locked the door? Quietly she tiptoed towards the door and peeked over the corner, to see...

"Malik! Oh, love, you _did_ come back!" She ran to the other, who took one look at her face and froze where he was standing. "Oh, I'm _so_ happy," she muttered as she wrapped her arms around his neck, hugging him tightly.

Suddenly she let go. "I have to call Aurora right away! Wait here, will you, honey?"

She ran to the phone.

"Answer now, oh answer, answer," she was almost bouncing up and down, as she waited for Aurora to pick up.

"Hel..."

"Oh, Aurora, guess what happened! He's back!"

"What? Felicia? What... do you mean... oh, but that's great!"

"Yeah, isn't it?" She couldn't keep a grin away from her face. "I'm _sooo_ happy... Y'know, Aurora, I don't think that I have to come there now. Malik's here, he will surely protect me, and anyway, I have my bracelet so I don't have to fear any magics."

"I... I'm not sure..." Aurora sounded a little doubtful.

"Oh, don't worry, all will be fine! I gotta stop now, I have to go to my love... I can barely believe this... See you later! I'll ask him if he knows anything about the others. Bye!"

"Okay... bye."

Running back to the outdoor she found Malik waiting for her there. Obviously he hadn't moved an inch. She gave him another big hug.

"We have to party this! I know! Let's go out! I... I think I have to wash my hair, and get that... Oh yes! You haven't seen the new dress I bought! I'll wear it tonight. And then... wait a moment, dear, I'll be ready in a moment."

She left Malik standing by the door, gathered some things, and closed herself up in the bathroom.

As the water was turned on, Malik blinked slowly. With a small smile on his lips he walked to the bathroom door and leaned against the wall, waiting. Let the girl wash her make-up away, he really was in no hurry.

* * *

Da~daa~da~dam... *looks up from her computer* Is that a cliffhanger? Well, in any case, read the following.

**Important note! READ THIS! Got your attention? Good.** ^^ I'm not sure when I'll get chapter 7 out, but~ chapter 6 ½ will be posted Jan 7, not earlier, not later. (Not later...? Oh my. I'm a little bit... blocked with that one.) I'm going to post it as **a separate fic**, since it'll probably be rated R, and I don't want to raise the rating of this fic. You don't have to read it, if you don't want to, but... Neko-chan~ I'd imagine that you want to read that thingy. ^~ I'll probably call it _The Doom of a Mary-Sue_, unless someone has a better suggestion... ^^;;

Happy New Year, everyone, this time. ^^


	7. Chapter 7 It's MY Problem

Sorry for the wait... Lately I've been feeling just as imaginative as a (writer's) block of stone, especially when it comes to humor. Anyway, this chapter turned out pretty long. ^^

So... for those who didn't read the chapter 6½ (you did read the AN in the end of the previous chapter, right?), Felicia is permanently out of the picture. **Note:** the first scene with the twins takes place _before_ chapter 6½, or more precisely at the same time with it, so the girls don't yet know of Felicia's fate. **I've added here the end of chapter 6½ for those who didn't read it**... it's not _so_ horrible it couldn't be in a PG rated fic, I guess. ^^

A small car note: My grandpa used to have a van in which there was a small seat for children between the front seats. So, I decided to give Yuugi's grandpa a similar car, just to have a _little_ more room for people there.

**Thank you to the reviewers!** ^^ I'm going to answer here also to the reviews for chapter 6½, even if all of those who read it weren't going to read this. Anyway, here we go:

Pikachumaniac: Nah, I don't care when you review, just leave me a lil' note every now and then so I know you're still reading. ^^ Hmmm, let's just say that the girls are not going to get away with this _too_ easily... And your Ryuuji is back in this chapter as I said - okay, it's a short scene, but still. I know I've been ignoring him for all too long, but I haven't forgotten him. ^^

lotus re-incarnate: And here we have one more blood-thirsty reviewer... ^^ Thanks for the review! And dun worry, I'll get rid of them, one way or other - not necessarily by _killing_ everyone, but... you'll see. *grin*

Yami Hitokiri: Thanks for all the reviews! Yes... I think that if I'm going to keep Yami Bakura IC, I'll _have_ to let him kill... um, was it Pearl? *sweatdrop* Only problem is that I don't yet have any idea of _how_. ^^; (I know that chapter four was a little confusing, it was Yami and Honda who escaped... but hopefully you knew that already.)

Ethelflaed: *stares at the review* . . . Wow, now you're making my head hurt too. ^^ Why don't we just say that... um, it was _good_ as a Mary-Sue, which makes it bad, and so it's good and bad at the same time... did you follow me? Don't worry, I'm not sure if I did either. Sorry, there's no Unity in this chapter, but she'll be in the next. I have still some things to figure out about that. ^~

Kathy: Well, I really doubt that you'll be reading this, but... *shrugs* Who cares. Yes, I know, writing a Mary-Sue parody is hardly original, but don't be so quick to judge when you don't know the whole story. I have to argue that _this_ story does have some original concepts, and that it _is_ funny at times. ^~ And as innominate said, chapter 6½ wasn't even supposed to be funny. So... oh well, that's enough. Moving on.

Kara: Thanks for the review! Here is more, if you are reading this.

innominate: Thanks! For the review and the other... comments equally. ^~ And don't worry, I don't care about them. My first flame! Wahoo! ...Yes, I know I'm weird. A little fudged into the head, according to a quiz.  
*nods* I thought about that part as well... Yami no Malik seems to be obsessed about hearts in this. ^^

atomictangorine: Well, thank you. *bows* ^^ And sorry for ruining your day. *grin*

Neko-chan: Glad you liked it. And yes... you are. Period.

Marleena the. *blink* Hey, what are _you_ doing here? Sorry, not meaning to be rude, just a little surprised... welcome! ^^ . . . *blinku* Am I going to answer you here...? I mean I could just walk downstairs and knock your door. *shrugs* Oh well, we don't want you to feel slighted or anything.  
So. *bows* All hail the Yliposto!  
Glad you liked it too. ^^ Official thanks for the official thanks!

Well, that took room. Finally, here's the next chapter. Enjoy! (Or at least try to.) (And yes, I know I'm 'forgetting' the disclaimer. Read it in the previous chapter if you want to.)

* * *

**Chapter 7**

"I'm so excited, sis! Just think, he's back in town! I just don't understand why he ran away from me..." Susan pouted a little as she watched her sister spread her things on the desk in the game shop. As soon as they had come back they had rushed to their book to 'consult' it. They had reasoned that in the shop no one would be likely to disturb them, so that was the place they had chosen for their 'ritual'. Now if Maryann only found the Book from her bag... Susan watched her impatiently.

"Oh, he'll come back, I'm sure of that... Here!" Maryann stood up smiling. "The Millennium Book, our guide in the life." She placed it on the desk almost with ceremonial air. Susan grasped her Quill, opened the Book, and pressed the Quill's tip on the paper.

"Okay!" She had barely finished writing when Maryann snatched the Book from her. "Here is what it says." Maryann cleared her throat and read then dignifiedly: "_Fate is cruel and life is short; run away, mission abort_."

"Huh?" Susan blinked. "What did you say?"

"_Fate is_..." Maryann stared at text and turned then to look at her sister. "What did you ask it?"

Susan blinked again. "Just... what is the wisest course of action... Let's try again!" She took the Book back and wrote: _In the current situation, what is the best way for us to proceed?_

Maryann shook her head as she read the answer.

"What?"

She sighed. "_To survive Fate's cruelest turn, run away before you burn._ Are you sure you set your question right? Maybe you misspelled some words or something."

"Third time lucky."

Once more Susan wrote into the book and Maryann read the answer. "_Flee, little girl, swiftly flee, before thy death catches thee_... what is _wrong_ with this book?"

"Oh, _one_ more time." _What should we do?_ Susan wrote into the book with capital letters. Then she gasped in surprise as the letters suddenly burst into flames and formed into new words.

"What's going on? Is it broken," she exclaimed, but fell then silent as she too was capable of reading the words in the book.

_Are you stupid or what? I told you to_ run_._

They stared at the book and looked then hesitantly at each other. "Do you think we should do as it says?" Susan whispered to her sister who licked nervously her lips.

"I don't know... maybe it is just broken or something. It isn't supposed to work like this. Maybe we should ask Aurora what to do..."

Just then they heard the doorbell ringing.

...

_I can't take this anymore..._ Eyes closed Anzu leaned her head against her hands, elbows on the pizzeria's table. _How can it be this difficult to get a plan everyone agrees on?_

All in all, things really weren't going that smoothly. Just a little ago Yami Bakura had stormed out of the building, 'fed up with these mortal fools' as he had put it. Ryou had left with him - mainly because he was still in his soulroom, and Anzu suspected that he hadn't even had a chance to get out of there. Jou, on the other hand, was far from being 'fed up', judging from how he devoured his second pizza, ignoring his little sister who had been sulking ever since Jou had finished interrogating her about her relationship to Honda - who, on the other hand, had entered the pizzeria just in time to hear his last comments. Naturally, the reunion of these old friends had almost ended up in a fistfight.

As for the rest of the group, Seto hadn't said a word for a long time, he just sat there quietly and watched his little brother eating, Yuugi seemed to be completely lost to the world as he sat staring into emptiness munching absentmindedly his pizza, Mai looked tired and a little sick as she watched Jou eating, and Sugoroku was bravely trying to come up with encouraging, helpful, and all-problems-solving suggestions... with very little success though. His best suggestion so far had included some toy weapons, banana peels on the floor, and Duel Monsters costumes.

For a moment Anzu wished that she too had a psycho little brother, so that she could have followed Isis's example and left home to make sure that he was okay. Instead, she had to be stuck here...

With a sigh she raised her head. "Listen guys," she started to say just at the same time as Mokuba announced happily "I'm ready!", having finished his pizza. At the same instant Seto stood up.

"Where are you going?" Mai asked looking at him with a frown.

"To Kaiba Corporation."

"But..." Anzu tried to say, but she was ignored.

"I have to go to check what is going on there, and besides, I need to get some papers from there. Anyway, if you're so worried, you can come with me - but that means that you will come _now_," he added, giving a look at Jou who had still almost half of the pizza left.

"No problem." Jou took one big bite of the pizza and folded the rest in half. "I'll take this with me."

Seto's look turned a little nauseous. "You are not going to eat in my car."

"Oh, he can come with me," Sugoroku said getting up from his chair.

In the end, both Jou and Honda ended up in the van, since Jou refused to let Honda go into the same car as his sister, and Shizuka wasn't that enthusiastic about her brother's company right then. Resisting an urge to roll his eyes at the two sullen teenagers who shared the van with him, Sugoroku started the car and drove after Kaiba's limousine.

{THE END OF CHAPTER 6½}

"Do you think it was wise of her?" Aurora watched her yami worriedly.

"Wise? What?" Nightfall glanced at her, irritated by the disturbance of her thoughts.

"Felicia... wanting to stay there all alone with Malik..."

Nightfall shrugged. "I don't have time to play her mommy. She's a big girl, she knows what she's doing."

Aurora didn't look convinced. "Yeah, maybe, but..."

A loud shriek, almost high enough to break glass, cut her off.

"What the _hell_!" Nightfall slammed her fist angrily against the table as she got up. "Can't I get a moment's peace in this house!"

She stomped angrily to the outdoor where the shriek had come from. There she saw the twins clinging to each other in terror. "Where's the mouse this time?" she asked exasperatedly, before she saw what they were staring at.

"Oh my god..." Aurora, who had followed her, turned quickly around placing a hand over her mouth.

"What the..." Nightfall stepped to the outdoor, which was still wide open. It was dark outside, and she couldn't see anyone in the shadows.

"What's going on here?"

She turned around as she heard Pearl's voice from behind her. The black-haired girl's eyes widened as she looked down. In that moment, her yami took over.

"Where did that come from?" Black Pearl turned to glare at the shivering twins.

"It... it was..." Maryann sniffled.

"There... there was..." Susan continued.

"Get a grip of yourself!" Nightfall grasped Susan's shoulders and shook her violently. "What _happened_?"

"So...someone rang the doorbell and we went to open and... and there was some cloaked figure... and he... he threw _that_ in... and... and..." she broke down into sobs.

"Who was it? Did he say anything?" Black Pearl asked.

"I... we don't know who it was..." Maryann sniveled. "But he said... said... that he wanted to bring us a mem... memento of Fe...licia... and... and show us what's waiting for u...us."

"Felicia..."

Nightfall let finally go of Susan and turned to stare at the bloody heart on the floor. Suddenly the air had turned quite chilly... Taking one final look into the darkening shadows outside, she pulled the door close.

{THE END OF CH. 6½... umm, ENDS}

"God..."

Maryann and Susan had returned to the shop and sat there hugging each other, sniffing quietly.

"Di-did he really... has he really ki-_killed_ Fe...Felicia..."

Maryann squeezed her sister a little tighter. "I... I don't... understand... How is this _possible_? Som-something like this wasn't _supposed_ to happen..."

Simultaneously their eyes turned to look at the Book. The text in it was still shining softly although it had begun to fade away.

_Are you stupid or what? I told you to_ run_._

They turned slowly to look at each other, jumped then up from their chairs and ran to pack up again.

...

Azura watched the flying twins through the game shop's window. She had known all the time that if things were to turn bad they'd be the first ones to run. _Rats leaving the ship... but this ship isn't going to sink._

She walked to the desk where the Millennium Book still lied and picked it up. Bending down she took the Quill from the floor as well. With a little snort she placed the two items into her bag before leaving the shop.

...

"As soon as this is over, we can throw a party. What do you boys think about that?"

Silence was the only answer Sugoroku got as Jou kept on staring at his knees and Honda out of the window. With an exasperated sigh he tried again.

"We can hold it at my place, have something good to eat and hey, maybe I could teach you some new came..."

New games were currently the last thing in either of the boys' mind. Jou kept on staring at his worn jeans a little frown on his face. If someone had taken a look on his thoughts right then this is what he would have seen - or maybe heard, however you want.

_I can't believe he's been flirting with my baby sister... as if I hadn't enough worries without that. Wonder how long this has been going on behind my back... Bastard... In a time like this, if you can't trust your friend, who can you trust?_

Honda's thoughts, on the other hand, weren't so far from his - actually they both would have been quite surprised to find out on how similar tracks their minds were.

_I can't believe he's overreacting like that... as if I hadn't enough worries without this. Wonder how long it'll take to make him calm down... Idiot... In a time like this, we'd need to keep together and not to start fighting._

The lights turned red in front of them and Grandpa brought slowly the van to halt. Honda's eyes wandered absentmindedly on the busy people crossing the street as he kept on cursing his idiotic best friend silently in his mind. The said eyes widened to an amazing size as he noticed two familiar-looking girls running over the street with rucksacks on their backs.

"Wha..." Following them with his gaze he leaned over Jou, earning an icy glare from the blond boy.

"There isn't that much room to begin with, if ya haven't noticed, so could y..."

"It's the twins!" Honda shouted, cutting the complaint off.

"What?" Now it was Jou's turn to blink in bewilderment. "Do you mean..."

"C'mon!"

Sugoroku was glancing frantically around as the boys jumped out of the car just as the light turned green. "Hey! Wait a..." But they were gone already, and he didn't have any other choice than to follow Kaiba's limo that was driving away - after all, parking in the middle of the junction wasn't any good idea.

"Besides, I've had enough of running after kids, I'm too old for that," he muttered under his breath.

Outside, Jou and Honda were also glancing frantically around, trying to spot the girls.

"Are you sure you saw them?" Jou asked his friend who just nodded in response.

"Hey, excuse me!" Honda stopped a middle-aged woman as she was about to walk past. "Did you see two auburn-haired girls with rucksacks here?"

Shaking his head the woman walked on, leaving the boys to curse under their breaths.

"Shit, we ain't going to..." Jou began to say, but a boy with a bike cut him off.

"They went to that alley," he said pointing with his finger.

Jou and Honda shared one quick look and ran then towards that direction, just shouting 'thanks' over their shoulders.

"It's not very long anymore, is it?"

"I guess not..." Susan took a glance around. "I _think_ we're pretty close now, anyway."

"You _think_..." Maryann muttered under her breath. "What good has ever come of you thinking?"

"Oh, don't get bitchy on me now, I'm doing my best. You're not much help here eith..."

"Hey!"

With a start the girls stopped and looked behind, to see two very angry-looking teenagers running towards them. Now, normally, they would have been thrilled about seeing again their beloveds, but this wasn't normally. And... the 'beloveds' didn't really look very loving at the moment.

As one they turned around again and began to run.

"Stop there bitches, we have something to say to you!"

Needless to say, they didn't obey.

The chase continued even deeper into the back streets, Susan still trying to do her best to find their destination. Very soon she had to admit to herself that she was completely lost, though. Not that she was going to tell that to her sister.

"Oh why didn't we use the mascara as Nightfall told us to?" Maryann panted as she almost could feel the boys' breath on her neck - that was, naturally, only her imagination, but it was still quite an unnerving feeling. _Cause using it all the time was making my eyes red_, she answered herself.

"Shut up and run," her sister muttered, but as she glanced over her shoulder she realized that it wouldn't do much good. So she did the only thing she could think of: screamed for help.

Susan glanced at her sharply but realized that there was little else they could do and joined her voice to the screams.

"Help! Robbers! Rapists! Murderers! They're going to kill us! Heeelp!"

Miraculously, their pleading was heard and answered, although not exactly in the way they had wished for. A door cracked open and a group of men stepped out of it blocking their way quite effectively. A group of men, most of them baldheaded, dressed in black leather and chains, with wide grins appearing on their faces as soon as they saw the girls. They were quite obviously member's of some gang - or at least members of some social group the twins _didn't_ want to get to know any better. They took one glance at the men, stopped on their heels, turned around, and almost bumped into Jou and Honda who, after taking one glance at the men, stopped on their heels, turned around, and ran after the girls.

"Gah! This day's all wrong!" Susan cried as the four of them fled side by side this time from a common threat.

"Giving you your own advice: shut up and run," her sister muttered under her breath -breath, which was growing short by this time.

_Those two bring more bad luck than you'd think is humanly possible_, Jou thought as he sprinted on throwing a hesitant glance over his shoulder. Not that he were afraid of those gang members, of course, but he had to admit that seven against two would be a little tough, and besides, stopping to fight would give the girls a chance to escape.

"We need to distract them somehow," Honda shouted, panting.

"Yeah, well... _how?_"

"Dunno."

In any case it was clear that they wouldn't be able to keep this on for long, they were all quite exhausted from all the running.

"You got any money?"

"No, but..." Jou's eyes fell on Maryann, or more precisely on the rucksack bouncing on her bag, or, to be even more precise, on a certain side pocket of the above mentioned rucksack. He'd seen it before, and he was pretty sure that... With a quick move he opened the pocket and snatched out Maryann's wallet before she could protest. The wallet was promisingly thick, and a grin appeared on his lips as he opened it. Bills, lots of bills, and _big_ ones, too. He took them out and scattered them on the street, seeing from the corner of his eye that Honda was doing just the same with Susan's wallet.

_They got us into trouble, so it's just fair that they'll pay us out of it._

Looking over his shoulder again he saw that 'the distraction' had worked fine: all the gang members more than happily ignored them and chased after the bills. They still kept on running until they were sure no one was anymore chasing them. By that time the twins weren't really running anymore, they were staggering. As Jou and Honda stopped and turned their icy glares at the girls, they looked ready to cry - well, actually Maryann was already crying. (Is that any wonder? Her side was hurting from the running, her hairdo was messed up, and moreover, she was sure she was going to die soon.)

"So," Jou muttered cracking his knuckles as he silently wondered what they'd do with the girls now that they had them, "it's time for payback."

Susan too let out a muffled sob while her sister fell to her knees.

"Don't tear out our hearts, please...don't!"

Had the boys been anime characters, they would have been sweatdropping now as Susan fell down beside her sister.

"We didn't mean anything bad, honestly! We just wanted to have some fun... there aren't any cute boys in our w... our... home..."

Jou and Honda shared an exasperated glance. "Maybe we should have left them to those guys," Honda grumbled, making the girls shiver even more.

"No... not those horrible monsters..." Susan sniffled again. "We'll be good, just let us go, we promise we'll never bother anyone again, we... we'll become nuns and..."

"Not me!" Maryann looked up sharply and blinked then. "I mean... the nun part... but I'll be good too, promise!" she continued quickly as she realized what she had said. "We'll go home and be good!"

"Uh... where is your home?" Jou asked, still trying to figure out what to do.

"In England," Susan whispered.

"Well, that's far enough for me..." Honda began to say but cut then himself off. Looking at the girls with a frown he asked, "If you're going to England, why are you running around in the back streets of Domino City?"

The girls glanced hesitantly at each other but didn't say anything.

"Well?" Jou frowned at them. "I think that's a very good question."

Susan bit her lip, a deep frown on her face. She was trying to weigh the alternatives, whether it was worse to tell the boys the answer and risk Yami Aurora's wrath, or not to say anything and face... god's knew what, but her imagination had some good suggestions.

Her sister didn't have any problems with the decision.

"We have kind of a shortcut here... somewhere," Maryann blurted out. "It takes us directly back to home, which is... well, it's in England but not really in this world, or in this dimension, or... something."

Susan decided that she might as well start talking too. "Unity and Azura know more about that, we just... they said there had to be seven of us and they asked us to join them, and Unity wrote the program, and then we came here, and..."

"Hey, wait a minute! What program?" Jou looked like he was getting a bad headache.

"The computer program. We could have a say on some parts of it too: what we wanted to look like, what kind of Millennium Items we wanted to have, and who we..." she gulped once before finishing, "...wanted to be with here."

"..." Jou was opening and closing his mouth like a fish on dry land.

"Are you some kind of a computer program?" Honda asked with wide eyes.

"No... it's a little complicated, we don't understand it that well either. We just..." Maryann took a deep breath trying to clear her thoughts. "Unity wrote the program," she said slowly. "It has the outline of how this story was _supposed_ to go, but I don't know what happened... What they told _us_ was that we'd go to another dimension, they called it the Yu-Gi-Oh! Dimension, and there we'd be beautiful and invincible and have magic and would get cute boyfriends... it sounded quite good, and that's all we know, really." She turned her big, watery eyes up to the boys. "Can we go home now, please?"

"Uh..."

Jou and Honda shared a bewildered look (trying to avoid the a-little-too-enchanting eyes - even without the mascara) neither of them knowing what to say.

"So..." Honda started finally, "did I get this right? You have written some kind of a story in which you come here and, well, and start to date and, well..." With a blink he fell silent.

"This is kinda like a live RPG for you?" Jou asked, and the twins nodded hesitantly.

"I guess," Maryann muttered, still looking at them pleadingly her question in her eyes, although she didn't dare to repeat it aloud any more.

Sharing one more look, this one more than exasperated, Jou and Honda nodded as one.

"Just get the hell outta here," Jou snorted, "and do _not_ come back."

The girls sprang to their feet. "Oh thank you so much! Thank you thank you thank you... we won't come back, promise! We'll..."

"Er..." Susan cut off her sister's outburst looking hesitantly around. "Sure, we'll go and don't come back, but... well, we're quite lost." She tried to pull the eye trick too, but neither of the boys fell for it.

Jou shrugged. "That's your problem, I can't help it if you're so foolish that you get lost that easily," he said, turning his back to the twins. The boys walked briskly away, leaving the girls looking helplessly around, trying to decide into which direction to leave - and in which direction they'd be most unlikely to get some unwanted company.

Behind the corner Jou turned to look at Honda who had followed him silently.

"So... got any idea where we are?"

...

A black limo stopped in the front of the Kaiba Corporation, followed by an old, grey van.

Yuugi was the first to hop out of the limo, and when he saw his grandfather stepping out of his car alone, he stopped in surprise. "Hey! Where did Jou and Honda disappear?"

Sugoroku shrugged. "They jumped of when we were stopped at the red lights. I think that Honda saw the twins."

Yuugi stared at him in shock. "And you let them go?"

His grandfather frowned down at him. "What was I to do to stop them?"

Yuugi shrugged, not knowing what to say. "I don't know... but I just hope they won't manage to get themselves enchanted _again_."

"We can hope that," Kaiba's voice came form behind of him, "but keeping in mind who we're talking about, it is quite unlikely." He was already walking towards the entrance. Glancing over his shoulder he continued, "You can wait here. This'll take only a moment. ...You too, Mokuba," he added to his little brother who was following him.

"But..."

"Just wait here, kiddo. Okay?" He smiled quickly at the boy, and Mokuba stopped, sighing.

"Okay, niisama. But be careful."

It was Seto's turn to shrug. "It's my own company."

They were left staring after him as he walked into the massive building.

Anzu glanced at the others. "I have a feeling that it wasn't a good idea to let him there all alone. What if there's something wrong?"

"Oh, niisama can deal with anything, he doesn't need help," Mokuba said trustingly, but even as he spoke he eyed the building worriedly.

Few minutes passed. And then some more. And still some more...

Yuugi yawned as he sat on the hood of Kaiba's limo. "I wonder how long his _only a moment_ is..." he muttered sleepily.

Mai shifted worriedly. "Maybe we should go to check if everything's okay," she said.

"I'm not sure if they'll let us just to walk in," Anzu said staring at the guards who were standing at the outdoor. She frowned a little. "Have there always been that many guards?"

Yuugi frowned too as he looked to the door. "I don't know... but Kaiba-kun didn't say anything about it, so I guess he thought that it's normal. But... maybe we should go to see what's taking him so long. What do you think, jiichan?"

He jumped down from the hood and turned to look at Sugoroku who shook his head, thinking.

"I don't know... that boy knows how to take care of himself, and who knows, maybe us running in there to rescue would just make things worse. I can't say that I like him much, but he knows what he's doing... usually."

"I'm still a little worried," Mai cut in. "He's a little too confident in himself... this isn't any ordinary girl we're dealing with. Mokuba, do you know..." she glanced around. "Hey, where's that kid?"

"Huh?" Yuugi blinked and looked around. "Mokuba?"

His eyes stopped on the front door of Kaiba Corporation as it slammed shut.

"That's it!" Anzu stared at the door determinedly. "Now we have to go there." She began to walk to wards the entrance, and the others followed her, but when they reached the door the guards stopped them.

"Your name and business." It wasn't a question but an order.

"Well..." Yuugi resisted the urge to squirm as the man's - the _gigantic_ man's, especially from his point of view - eyes fell on him. "We... I'm Mutou Yuugi, and these are my friends and grandfather, and, uh... we're Kaiba-kun's friends and we have to speak with him now, so..."

"I am sorry," the man said, although nothing in his expression indicated that there was any truth in those words, "but I am under orders not to let in anyone who doesn't have an appointment."

Yuugi glanced at his companions, and then at the solid wall that was the guard.

"Ummm... well, have a nice day," he muttered at the man giving him a hesitant smile that died soon away under the cold glare. "Uh, we'll be going now..."

They walked slowly back to the cars. "What now?" Anzu asked, and Yuugi shrugged.

"Unless one of you knows a way to break in there, I guess we just have to wait."

...

Azura stretched herself a little, taking a little more comfortable position on the couch as she waited for Otogi to come home. Now that she had both the Book and the Quill she was trying to relax a little. Otogi's home really was good for that, too bad that she could spend there so little time. Everything had been so _stressing_ lately... she pressed her fingers against her cheek. _I hope this stress doesn't..._

Just then Otogi entered the room, and she favored him with a bright smile. "Good that you came, dear. I have to ask you something. Answer me truthfully: do you think that this stress is having a bad effect on my skin? Sometimes when I'm stressed I get..."

"Your skin is perfect, love," Otogi said, placing his hand against her cheek as he sat down beside her. "But... you are stressed?" He tsked. "I've asked you a _million_ times if everything's okay, and you always just smile. How can I help you if you don't talk to me?"

Azura smiled at him sweetly. "You're too kind to me." She thought for a moment. "Actually, there is something that you can do for me... I need you to get something for me."

Otogi dropped down from the couch to one knee, looking up at her worshippingly. "Anything for you," he whispered, grasping her hand.

"Good. Felicia is dead, and I believe that Malik has her bracelet. I want it."

The grasp of her hand tightened for a moment. "Uh..."

"What?" Azura frowned at him and quickly he hurried on to assure her that he'd get her _anything_, even the rings of Saturn to adorn her fingers.

Azura frowned again. "I don't want the rings of Saturn, I want Felicia's bracelet."

"Oh, I'll get it to you, of course I will." He sat again beside her on the couch. "I just... Did you say that Malik has it? "

Azura shrugged. "I think so."

"Uh..." Otogi managed to look really troubled at the same time as he was the very image of admiration. "How'll I get it?"

"That's your problem, honey."

* * *

AN: No Azura, you're wrong. It's not his problem, it's my problem. -_-;; Don't have any idea at the moment... I've given up with trying to write an outline for this fic. It's pointless, everything keeps on changing all the time.

I know, that's a little cliffhangry when it comes to Seto and Mokuba, but... I need to have a little more time to think exactly what is going to happen in there. I have the basic idea but... just be patient. I'm facing problems with Bakura and Ryou too... I don't really know what they're up to. (Yes kiddies, starting to write a fic without a proper outline will only get you into trouble.)

Yeah, I didn't kill the twins. They're so... _stupid_ that I started to feel sorry for them.

Btw, I faced some problems with this chapter concerning the time of day. Chapter 6½ ends when it's already dark outside, but that doesn't fit the overall timeline. The events of 6½ take place about 4 pm... In the end I just decided to ignore that. ^^;; Hope it didn't bother you - if you even noticed anything. (I mean... I usually don't notice things like that in fics I read. Or write, apparently. ^^;)

*frowns* Hey, tell me honestly what you think about this, okay? I've got a feeling that this fic's... like... been going downhill or something. The last three chapters don't feel as good as the previous ones. Actually, my favorites are the first and the fourth chapter, but the others. *frowns again* Oh well, maybe I'm once again being too self-critical.


	8. Chapter 8

A slightly shorter chapter this time. I ended up leaving some scenes out of this (mainly because I can't bring myself to write them right now, and I didn't want to keep you waiting any longer. Maybe I'll get them written in next couple of weeks or so.) Anyway, the review responses:

Tamara Raymond: Yes, everyone loves getting criticism. And when you get criticism with flattery, what more do you need? Oh yes, the Almond Joys. ^^ *bows* Trust me, I _am_ honored. And the same goes for getting into favorites… I'll do my best to keep the quality up.

kaz: 'lmao' is a good word to be used in a review, if you ask me. ^^ Thanks for the review, I'm glad that you still like this.

Yami Hitokiri: *grin* Not any bad idea… Anyway, I had to leave the Otogi and Bakura scenes to the next chapter (for reasons mentioned above). So, unfortunately, this will be a Bakura-less chapter, but we'll have him back on the stage in the next one. ^^

Bloody Mary: Glad you find this funny, but don't laugh too much… we don't want you to get an attack of any kind, do we? ^~

Pikachumaniac: Okay PM… take a deep breath and calm down, everything's going to be just fine… and besides I _still_ need Azura, so you can't kill her yet. …Hmmm, I have a feeling I've told you that before… just be patient. ^^;

Ethelflaed: Thanks! ^^ No, it didn't offend, and I think you had good points there. So, here you get a Kaiba/Unity (not in _that_ way!) -centric chapter as a reward. Well, okay, you would have gotten it anyway, but still. (Yes, btw, I try to keep the cursing out of this – this is PG story anyway – but sometimes I just can't help it… Blame the characters. In some situation they just start cursing.)

* * *

**Chapter 8 (Okay, who needs titles? -_-;)**

"So."

Hands clasped behind her back, Nightfall measured slowly the living room floor, a deep frown on her face. Suddenly she stopped and gave a serious look at the three other girls who were watching her expectantly.

"So."

Aurora leaned forward eagerly. "Yes?"

"We need to do something."

Black Pearl snorted. "Really," she muttered under her breath. "I wouldn't have thought of that."

Pearl nudged her in the side. "Hush yami. Let her speak," she whispered.

"This," Nightfall said, ignoring the two as she continued walking around, "is beginning to get serious. Felicia is dead, Maryann and Susan have fled, and Azura and Unity seem to be more interested about their own affairs than our common good. It is sad to see our companionship falling apart like this."

She shook her head sighing sadly and sat down as well. "Also, it seems that Felicia's bracelet has fallen into enemy hands. We need to retrieve it."

Black Pearl leaned back on her chair, playing absentmindedly with her long raven-black hair. "Yes, that weird guy with serious mental problems has it, right?"

"It's quite probable. And I believe that Azura is after it too – anyway, I'm pretty sure that she's the one who snatched the twins' Millennium Items."

"So now she has, besides her own, also the Book and the Quill, and she's planning to get the Bracelet too. That _is_ serious, she'll soon be all too powerful." Black Pearl stood up with a determined expression. "I will go to get the Bracelet back before she gets it."

Nightfall nodded. "I was just about to suggest that. Take Pearl with you, an extra pair of hands might come useful."

Pearl jumped up from her chair. "Always ready to help!"

Aurora watched worriedly after them as the two girls left. "Be careful!" she shouted as she heard the outdoor slam close.

Nightfall sighed. "I really hope they succeed in this," she muttered.

"I'm sure they will," Aurora said and patted encouragingly her shoulder. "But I wonder what Azura is doing right now…"

Nightfall snorted. "Plotting something with her _sweetheart_, what else?"

...

The lights were low in Otogi's apartment, and the silence was deep enough to be cut with the proverbial knife. The door to the bedroom was ajar, and from its shadows came sweet scents of burning incense, floating in the air, soft and slightly intoxicating smells that eased a troubled mind. The atmosphere was perfect for quiet meditation.

Inside the bedroom a lonely figure lay on the bed; Azura was getting her beauty sleep.

Otogi Ryuuji, on the other hand, would have given much for a chance to get _his_ beauty sleep. Actually, he would have been content with a short snap on a fakir's spike bed – even that would have been better than what he was currently doing.

But it couldn't be helped; if Azura wanted to have Felicia's bracelet, she would get it. More precisely, he would get it for her and be her hero. With that in his mind he continued his way towards Malik's apartment.

...

In his office Kaiba Seto was quickly flipping through his papers, trying to ignore the growing headache he had. It was quite _impossible_ how good people were in messing up things. Now, if they only were as efficient in doing what they were supposed to do… Well, nothing too bad hadn't happened, nothing that he wouldn't be able to put in order in few days, but… With a deep frown he wondered if he really wanted to have people who were this incompetent hired.

His frown deepened even more when he glanced at his watch. This had taken longer than he would have believed… the others waiting for him on the street were probably growing impatient. Good thing that he had left them on there though – if they had been with him in his office breathing over his shoulder, he knew he wouldn't have got anything done.

"Niisama?" A quiet voice interrupted his thoughts, and with a start he turned to glance at the door, surprised to see his little brother standing there. Well, not _that_ surprised after all, actually he had been wondering why the boy hadn't shown up yet.

"Mokuba? What are you doing here?" He turned his gaze back to the papers. "Oh never mind that," he continued before Mokuba could say anything. "The last few pages of this document are _missing_. Go to my secretary and get them." The frown was back on its place as he shoved the papers to his brother and turned to his computer.

"Sure, niisama." Mokuba smiled as he left the room. It was good to see that everything was back to normal.

.

"I'm so glad he has found a nice girl like you… just the right kind of woman to take care of him and…"

Mokuba hesitated a moment hand over the door handle listening to the pieces of conversation he heard. Was Ms. Yamagawa again 'interviewing' a daughter-in-law candidate on working hours? She should know by now that Seto didn't like that. Deciding to give her a friendly warning he pushed the door open.

"Ms. Yamagawa? Do you have…" The papers dropped from his hand and spread all over the floor but he didn't even notice it as he stared in horror at the beautiful redhead who was sitting opposite the secretary.

Unity turned to look at him a big smile spreading over her face. "Mokuba! Honey, great to see you again! I was just about to go to see your brother… where are you going, honey?"

Mokuba was backing slowly out of the room, still staring at Unity eyes wide. As the girl got up from her chair he suddenly sprinted away screaming for the guards.

"Hey, wait!"

_I don't think so…_ Glancing over his shoulder Mokuba saw Unity running after him. _I wouldn't have believed she'd _really_ be able to get in here…_ Passing some very confused-looking office workers he headed to… where? Right now he was going directly to his brother, but… _Can't lead her straight to Seto. _He ran straight past Seto's room and as he came to the stairs he turned abruptly and started to stumble down them. To his relief he finally saw two guards running the stairs up and stopped, panting, as they reached him.

"There's a witch in here! You have to… have to…" he had to stop do draw breath.

The guards glanced at each other. "The Wicked Witch of West, huh?" another of them started to say placing a hand on his shoulder, but just then Unity came into view.

"That's her!" Mokuba shrieked pointing at her. "Catch her before she…"

"Oh, thank you so much for catching him," Unity said cutting him off. "I was running short of breath." She flashed them a smile and the men grinned stupidly back at her.

"Glad to help, Miss Unity," they answered in unison, and Mokuba groaned. Then he started to struggle as the men took a firmer grip of him.

"Let go of me! Let _go_! I…"

"Hush, hush now, little honey… it's alright." Unity had walked to them and bent down to ruffle his hair. "It's so hard with kids once they come to puberty," she continued giving a grave look at the guards who just nodded, still grinning.

"Anyway." Unity straightened and waved with her hand. "Let's go to meet your brother." She started to climb up the stairs and the men followed her dragging Mokuba with them.

"Do something!" Mokuba shouted as a couple of even more confused-looking office workers passed them on the stairs. "Stop her!"

Unity smiled at the employees. "He just had a little fight with his brother, Mr. Kaiba wants to speak with him now."

As usual, Seto's name was enough to get the employees to remember that they really had a _lot_ of work to do, and everyone scattered to do their jobs.

"Don't listen to her! She's a witch! Don't…" _Gosh._ With a defeated sigh Mokuba realized that this wasn't going to help. And they were quickly getting close to Seto's office…. Once again he opened his mouth and shouted as loud as he could (and believe me, it was loud. All in all, it is quite amazing what kind of sounds small children can get out of themselves):

"_Run, niisama_!"

In his office, Seto was still staring at the computer screen, absentmindedly wondering why fetching some papers was taking so long from his brother. _If that demented excuse for a secretary has lost those files, I will…_

"Run, niisama!"

He blinked.

Mokuba's voice. Mokuba telling him to run. Danger. Mokuba in danger.

He ran.

In the stairs, Mokuba groaned again as he saw his brother dashing towards him and his captors. "I meant that you'd run _away_, idiot," he muttered when Seto stopped at the end of the stairs to glare at Unity, his trench coat blowing flamboyantly behind him.

"You," he all but snarled, "will release my little brother right now, leave this building, this city, and, preferably, this country, and then _maybe_ I will let you live."

Unity smiled at him, batting her eyelashes. "I missed you too, dear."

Seto dropped his eyes quickly to the floor. "What do you want, witch?"

"Oh, nothing so much… why don't you look at me, honey? That is all I want, really… just look at me and then your brother can leave to… do whatever kids like him like to do. Go somewhere to play, or…"

"Witch." Seto's hands were squeezed into fists. "Harm one hair on his head and I will send you to an early grave."

The guards shifted a little. "Now, mister Kaiba," another of them said, "Don't talk like that to Miss unity. How can you threaten such an angel?"

For a moment Seto just stared at them, then he nodded slowly. "Yes, a real angel, isn't she?" he said sweetly making Unity blink in confusion. "The one who'll get her will be really lucky… too bad for you it's not going to be either of you."

He smirked a little as the men glanced at each other. This thought had obviously never crossed their minds.

Unity twitched a little as she glanced at the middle-aged, graying men. _Luckily…_ she thought, before snapping angrily at the men, "Oh, just ignore him!" She turned back to Seto. "Stop being so difficult and look at me!"

She was ignored as Seto continued talking to the men.

"Now, on the other hand… it's quite a pity that she has chosen me – for her, that is. You do know what kind of a coldhearted bastard I am, do you really think I'd be good for her?"

This time the men looked purely shocked and they turned to look at Unity with wide eyes, starting to speak at the same time.

"You have to reconsider this, Miss! You'd be _so_ unhappy with him…"

"Yes, _I_, for example, would do anything for you, but he…"

"I'd do anything for you too, and I'd do it better, but he…"

Unity was blinking frantically, and it had nothing to do with charming someone. "Hey guys…"

"You'd do it better, huh? Well, I'm the one she asked to get her coffee yesterday!"

"That's just because she wanted to be alone with me!"

The men were turning rapidly quite red, and Unity looked like she were totally at a loss of what to do while Seto stood back and followed the development of the situation calmly.

"She said that she adores blue eyes, that's why she likes niisama," Mokuba piped up suddenly, and the men stopped shouting for a moment to stare at his innocent, wide, gray-blue eyes.

Then the brown eyes of another of the guards – the coffee-fetching one, that is – fell upon the blue eyes of his companion, and a moment later his fist met another of the said blue eyes with strength.

Mokuba jumped hastily away from the fighting men as Unity started to scream incomprehensibly at them.

"Come here," Seto said quietly, pulling Mokuba behind himself. "Now, _Miss Unity_, we didn't finish our conversation yet."

Unity fell silent and turned to look at him with quite an anxious feeling. _This isn't going well… maybe I should get more guards here._

"Go niisama!" she heard Mokuba whisper from behind his brother's back. "Kill her! Spread her brain on the floor!"

Seto cut off what he had been going to say. "Mokuba," he said calmly looking over his shoulder, _"what_ have you been reading lately?"

Mokuba just smiled at him innocently, and he turned his attention back to Unity.

"Whatever it is, you won't be reading it anymore," he muttered, and heard a quiet sigh from behind himself.

"Yes, niisama…"

"Umm…" A wide-eyed young woman with a memo in her hand was staring at them – and so were quite a lot other people, too. "Should I call the guards… uh, _more_ guards, sir?" she asked hesitantly.

Seto shook his head. "No, I'll take care of this myself. Just ignore this and do your job."

With one final glance at the battling guards, the weird redheaded woman, and her employer's little brother who was still telling him to kill the witch, she nodded and walked quickly away, anxious to get to the safety of her own office. The other people left as well, one after the other. Anyway, there had been weirder things going on in Kaiba Corporation.

"So…" Seto took a deep breath. "Now that we are finally left alone, let's finish this. I want you to…"

Something snapped in Unity's head. "Who cares about what you want!" she shrieked and flung herself at Seto. "This is _my_ story and _I_ decide how things go!" She took a firm a grasp of Seto's hair and shook him, or, well, _tried_ to shake him vigorously. "Look at me _now_!"

Seto was desperately trying to get her off of himself, but although she wasn't very strong, she seemed to have some common characteristics with burrs. "Let go, witch! I…"

"You heard him! Let _go_!" he suddenly heard Mokuba's voice and felt someone clinging to his back. _Damn, I think I'm going to…_ he was just thinking when Mokuba sank his teeth into Unity's hand, _…fall._

With a shriek Unity let go of him, staring at her hand which had a small red streak flowing down it. She tried to step back but Mokuba was still clinging to her arm, and as Seto, who had been captured between them, tried to regain his balance waving wildly with his arms, she started to fell down. Arms waving as if she were trying to take wing she fell back towards the stairs while Seto and Mokuba ended up in one pile on the floor.

"You taste _bad_!" she heard Mokuba shouting as she rolled down the stairs. _This _can't_ be happening…_ flashed in her mind just before she hit her head on the edge of a step and passed out. The guards stopped their fighting and froze in shock for a moment before rushing to her with horrified cries, Mokuba and Seto scrambled to their feet staring at the fallen girl feeling slightly confused, all the people who had left to their works ran back to them, the anxious young woman grasping a cell phone and starting to call an ambulance…

Now, let's leave this hectic scene behind. Look deep into the crystal ball that appears in the front of your mind's window… with its help we can take a short look on what will happen after a few days…. As the mystical mists fade away, a hospital bed comes into view, and there is a young girl lying quietly on it. Her bright red hair forms a cloud around her head, a cloud into which the evening sun has just disappeared. She breathes peacefully with her respirator as she sleeps, not knowing anything about the sympathetic nurse who is checking her blood pressure.

The nurse stares at her sadly, thinking: _So young… it is so wrong when this happens to the young._ Suddenly she freezes in the middle of movement – the girl's eyelids twitched. Not daring to believe, she stares at her holding her breath, but… yes! It is true! A miracle has occurred! Shaking with excitement she runs to the door, shouting, "She is awake! The Sleeping Beauty is awake!"

A doctor and three other nurses as well as five patients rush to the room to witness this amazing event. As the girl blinks slowly, the doctor chases the other nurses and patients away, only he and the first nurse remain in the room.

"There, my girl." He smiles as he leans over the girl. "How do you feel? Do you remember what happened? Who you are?"

The girl blinks again. "Ye…" she tries to say, but her mouth is dry and she cannot speak until the nurse gives her some water. "Yes," she says then more firmly and looks around. "Am I in hospital?" she asks with a confused frown.

The doctor nods. "Yes. You seem to be very lucky, young lady. According to your diagnosis, you were not going to wake up again. It is quite a miracle that you did… I personally wouldn't have believed it. You were in coma for five days, and…"

"Five days!" The girl jumps up on the bed. "Oh my god… I have to find out what's going on, I… I need my computer! Get me my computer!"

The doctor and the nurse glance sharply at each other. "Now there, my girl, I don't think this is a good time to go surfing in the net…"

She throws the respirator angrily away. "I don't want to surf in the net! I have to find out how this story is going on!" She tries to get out of the bed but the doctor and the nurse hold her back.

"Story?" the doctor asks. "What do you mean?"

"This…story…" the girl gasps ceasing her struggling. "My story. I have to find out if my friends are still in this dimension – or maybe they have been killed… by those horrible Duel Monsters freaks…"

The doctor frowns. "Duel Monsters?"

"It's a trading card game," the nurse whispers to him. "My son likes it."

"I see." The doctor looks gravely at the girl. "Just lie back now and rest, I will take care of everything."

She lies down and shuts her eyes, feeling really tired. "And I should get the Mascara, get me the Mascara… then all will be fine…"

The nurse and the doctor leave her alone as she falls asleep. Outside her room the doctor shakes his head sadly. "We can only hope she will get better once she has had some time to recover."

"Oh, I'm sure she will, don't worry, doctor."

But she didn't. Next week they had to send her to a mental institution, for she just kept on babbling about shaping the world with her computer and controlling people with her friend's mascara.

It was sad, but that's life.

* * *

**AN:** That's all for now. I'll try to get the next chapter written soon, but we'll see about that… I basically know what's going to happen (for once!) so there shouldn't be any great problems, but as I said… we'll see.

All grammar etc corrections are still appreciated, btw… I know there has to be some, I refuse to believe that I'd be able to write completely fluent and flawless English (yet ^^). I just keep on getting mixed up with words like 'clasp' and 'grasp' or 'spring' and 'sprint' (writing 'sprang' when I meant 'sprinted') for one thing… ^^;;


	9. Thieves in a Storm

Well, here it is, finally. *pokes the chapter* But it's crappy. -_- Quite long though, at least when we're talking about _my_ chapters. I actually had to cut this in two… Anyway, here you are. A long, crappy chapter… enjoy. ^^

Sorry for the wait, though. I do have my excuses. I believe they're called 'life' and 'studies'…

I'm in no mood to do the disclaimer, so if someone absolutely wants to read it, do it in the previous chapter. … Except that I forgot to do it there… ^^; Well, do it in the first chapter, then.

One final note: I did proofread this, but I was… kind of asleep then, so… sorry. ^^;

**The review responses:**

Tamara Raymond: *blush* Okay, I'm not _that_ good. But anyway, I'm glad you liked the previous chapter. Hope you can get something out of this… *continues poking the chapter*

Bloody Mary: Indeed they are. ^^ Kaiba brothers adorable, that is, in the case you don't remember anymore what you wrote in your review… ^^;; This update didn't come that soon, after all. Sorry about that… but thanks for the review!

Ethelflaed: *grin* Thanks for the plushie. *huggles it* Hmm… I guess I should try to get you a Kaiba plushie… or maybe a robot… to dance with. The real one _might_ be a little difficult, I understand that. ^^

Pikachumaniac: PM… at this rate, you might get to kill her… hmm… somewhere in the chapter 13, or something like that. X_x This story only keeps on getting longer…  
Anyway… *grin* Very, very ~very~ interesting ideas you had there. Too bad that this fic is rated PG…

Yami Hitokiri: Well… there is some Bakura in this this time. In the end. Not that much, but… the next chapter will be about Bakura and Ryou and 'their girls', promise! That's the part I had to leave out of this, actually… ^^; You'll get it as soon as I can get it written… and I'll try to write faster this time.

* * *

**Chapter 9: Thieves in a Storm**

Seto watched after the ambulance with his trademark smirk as it drove away lights flashing.

"So." The smirk turned into a smile as he glanced at his little brother who was standing beside him. "We got rid of her."

Mokuba looked a little disappointed. "She didn't die, niisama. What if she'll be back? And anyway, falling down stairs would be such a _boring_ way to die."

Seto sighed. "Stop whining, Mokuba. And don't talk anymore about killing people – you're starting to scare my employees."

Mokuba echoed his brother's sigh.

"Excuse me, Kaiba-san…"

"What?" Seto turned to look at one of is guards who approached him hesitantly.

"We have arrested a group of teenagers who tried to break into the company. What do you want us to do with them?"

Seto snorted while Mokuba started to glance around frantically. "Whatever you want to, I can't say that I care… what now, Mokuba?" he asked a little irritatedly as Mokuba started to tug his sleeve.

"Niisama… Yuugi and others are nowhere around. Do you think that…"

Seto groaned. "On second thought – I'll take care of them."

...

_So._

He stopped in a street corner, trying to look as nonchalant as he could, as if he were just… just… okay, so he couldn't come up with a good explanation of why he would be standing there, keenly observing the house that was a little ahead on the street, but so what. It wasn't anyone's business, anyway.

_All I have to do is to get in there, grasp the bracelet, and get out. No big deal._

No big deal. He twitched a little. A couple of kids walked by, giving him a weird look, but he dignifiedly ignored them as he continued staring at the house.

An old wooden house, one of the few there were still left in Domino. He could easily understand that Malik and Isis didn't want to live in an apartment house, given all the… _weird_ noises that might disturb the neighbors at odd hours. The neighborhood wasn't the most pleasant one either, but… after all, that as well was quite understandable.

These thoughts didn't really help him feel any better about this mission.

_I wonder how some great thieves would deal with this situation. Like… well, Robin Hood, or… or…someone._

Robin Hood. He liked that idea. He was like Robin, stealing for his beloved Marian… except that Robin stole from the rich for the poor, or how was it? Never mind. He could always improvise a little, make his own version of Robin Hood's story. Besides, he didn't want to go to live in a forest… oh damn.

With a twinge of panic he glanced around for a place to hide as the front door of the house was flung open. Sadly, there were no hiding places around, and trying to look like he was only on a perfectly innocent walk he turned his back to the house and started to walk away. After a while he heard a car starting behind himself and glanced carefully over his shoulder to see a small red car driving away. Isis's car. Great. Finally he was having a little luck.

He approached the house again and sneaked to the backyard. Good, good. There was a back door. Which was locked. Glaring accusingly at the offending door, he backed away a little, thinking. Now, dice were good for many a thing, but he didn't really believe that it was possible to pick locks with them…

Observing the house he suddenly noticed a small window in the basement that was open. Well, if that was the only way in… with a determined look he started to squeeze in through it.

It wasn't as easy as it had looked like. First his jacket got stuck into something, and once he after a lot of tugging finally got it free, he suddenly realized that it would have been smarter to get in _feet_ first. By then it was already a little too late, and he ended up falling down head first, hitting his head against the floor and scattering some empty bottles in the process.

_Damn._

After he had gathered himself back to his now a little shaky legs, he glanced carefully around. Everything was dark, and quiet too, maybe no one had heard the noise he had made. Even better, maybe no one was home.

But it was _dark_. A little light was coming in through the window, but that didn't do much to illuminate the room. After hitting his toe a few times at various unidentified objects, he finally came to the door and to the switch. Which didn't work. With a sigh he pushed silently the door open and glanced out. Stairs leading upwards started right behind the door, as dark as the room. He was just about to start climbing them up when a loud rumble made him to jump a little. For a split second a bright light flashed behind his back, then everything fell into darkness again. This time, though, the silence was broken by hard pounding of rain.

Trying to make his heart calm down as he stood back against the wall he glanced behind at the window.

_That's weird… the sky was totally cloudless just a moment ago, and this isn't even the rainy season._

Another lightning illuminated the room for a moment, just long enough to for him to see that it was obviously used only as some kind of a storeroom. The room was full of all kinds of cardboard boxes. A big chest on the other side of the room had caught his attention, and he started to walk carefully towards it. This time he managed not to stumble over anything, and as he reached the chest he bent down to open it. It wasn't even locked. He had just placed his hands on the chest as a lightning stroke again, and in it's light he could read the big red capital letters on the chest.

_Yami no Malik's stuff. Do not touch._

In a moment he was back at the door, heading towards the stairs again. That chest really didn't need any lock.

He climbed as quickly and quietly as he could up the stairs. The whole house appeared to be dark, so maybe all inhabitants really had left away. For a moment he considered turning the lights on, but decided then not to. He didn't know how long they were planning to _stay_ away, and if they would return to see that the lights were on… yes, that might cause some problems.

But he really would have appreciated some kind of a source of light… Right on cue a lightning flashed outside and threw shadows on the walls for a brief moment, and he couldn't help flinching a little. A little more permanent source of light, maybe…

He opened cautiously a door and peeked into what seemed to be a kitchen. Quite unlikely place to hide a magical item… although, who knew with these lunatics. Anyway, he turned his back to the kitchen and wandered on into the living room. A living room, which had something that looked like a candle and matches on a table. Wonderful.

In the candle's flickering light he took a look around. The living room was pretty normal, keeping in mind who lived there. There was a table, some Egyptian-looking items on it, few armchairs, a bookshelf, and a couple of cupboards. Unfortunately, nowhere there were any signs of enchanted bracelets.

He opened another door and looked inside. A bedroom, most likely Isis's. His eyes stopped on few closets, and after he placed the candle on a dressing table he went to examine them… only to find nothing else but women's clothes. As the clothes turned to underclothes he gave up and turned his attention to the table's drawers. There he did found jewels, most of them probably quite expensive, but none of them would please his beloved. With a sigh he shut the drawers and left the room, cursing quietly as some of the candle's hot wax dropped on his hand.

There was another room just beside Isis's bedroom, and he entered it in its turn. A lot of stuff – clothes, books, knives, half-eaten apples etc – was lying around on the floor. There was a desk, a cupboard, a bed, and… someone lying on the bed.

For a moment he froze and started then to tiptoe away, but just then a particularly bright lightning stroke down just beyond the room's window, blinding him for a moment, and being followed by the loudest rumble he had ever heard.

As the figure on the bed jumped up he blew quickly out his candle. _Don't look here, don't look here…_ he chanted in his mind closing his eyes tightly, as the fair-headed boy on the bed ran fingers through his hair and glanced confusedly at the window giving an enormous yawn.

"What a weather…" Malik lay back down on his bed with a small stretch. Otogi opened his eyes slightly, and saw that the other boy was again lying quietly on his bed, almost asleep. He took a small step backwards. He wasn't that far from the door, it wouldn't take him long to slip out of this room, and wait till the other boy would surely be asleep. Then he could…

"No."

He froze again, looking frantically at Malik, but the blond boy was still lying on his bed eyes closed.

"I said _no_, yami. No, we're _not_ going out. I don't care how much you enjoy thunderstorms, but… Oh, be quiet and let me sleep!"

Silence took over again, and Otogi almost started to breath again, but just then Malik rolled over on the bed.

"Shut up… I'm not going anywhere… but you _can't_ take control, can you? Yeah, sucks to be you… what? Don't be silly, we both know you won't be doing anything like that… let me sleep already?" he curled up into a ball, hugging his pillow. "Okay, okay, I'll take you to the park tomorrow, we can scare people or something but… no, we won't kill anyone, but… scare them… or… something…"

His voice died away and he began to breath more peacefully. "Yeah… what ever you want…" he muttered, before falling asleep again.

Otogi left out the breath he hadn't realized he was holding. Finally. He tiptoed carefully to the desk and opened its drawers, all the time glancing nervously at the sleeping boy. No bracelets. No bracelets anywhere in the room. With an irritated glance at Malik he left the room and sat in an armchair in the living room to think.

He hadn't searched Rishid's room yet, but he didn't believe that the bracelet would be there. He'd imagine that Malik would want to keep it as close by himself as possible. The blond boy – or at least his psychotic other self – was so paranoid that he'd keep something that important in some certain place and wouldn't trust it with anyone else. Yes, now that he thought about it, it was quite probable that it was Yami no Malik who was most interested about the bracelet of all the Ishtars.

Suddenly, as if a lightning of knowledge had flashed in his mind, he remembered something.

_Yami no Malik's stuff. Do not touch._

"That's it!" he shouted and jumped up, clasping then a hand on his mouth. Luckily it seemed that Malik was quite a sound sleeper.

He rushed quickly back to the cellar and the chest. He placed the candle on the floor beside the chest and stared hesitantly at the red letters.

_Do I really want to do this?_

This question had barely entered his mind when he remembered Azura's soft blue eyes, and the way they would shine as he'd return to her with the bracelet… Before he had had time to think about it more closely he had opened the chest – and, once again, closed his eyes tightly.

_I might want to do this, but I really _don't_ want to see what's in there._ Hesitantly he reached forward with his hands. There was some rough cloth in the chest, nothing dangerous in that… something that seemed to be some kind of a weapon – actually, with closer inspection, there were _many_ weapons… and a small pot. He opened it, still not looking, and put his hand into it… into something… soft and a little wet, jelly-like stuff… He couldn't help shuddering a little and drew his hand back quickly. Who knows what that stuff was. Suddenly he remembered that Azura had told him Felicia was dead… and it wasn't difficult to figure out who had killed her. What if… after all, he did know that Yami Malik had a fetish for all kinds of… body parts… soft, jelly-like… Suddenly he had to fight hard not throw up right then and there. Once he had regained his composure he continued his search, and after some more fumbling his hand met something hard in the chest. Something round… He grasped it tightly and raised it in the front of his eyes.

"Yes!"

Grasping the bracelet he rushed to the small window, almost diving out through it. And landing – once again – head first on the wet grass. Ignoring the bump that was forming on his head he stared at the house in triumph.

_I got it! Take that! Hah! Who's the Thief King here?_

He looked down at the bracelet in his hands – and at the red stuff that covered his other hand. He began to wipe it away quickly but stopped soon and looked at his hand more carefully. Red, thick and sticky stuff that smelled – he raised the hand to his nose – quite sweet. A little like… strawberries? Strawberry jelly? He blinked at the house in confusion and licked his hand to confirm it.

_Strawberry jelly in a chest in a cellar? I_ knew _he's weird. Anyway, time to be going._

Taking a few dance steps and humming softly _Singing in the Rain_ he began his way towards his cherished one.

...

Somewhere not so far away a white-haired boy was staring at a shop window with a scowl. Actually, to be exact, he was staring at his reflection in the said window, and he didn't like what he saw. Not that he were vain or anything, definitely not, but he still kind of liked his hair – those wild, untamed spikes of white hair gave the impression of something… well, wild and untamed, at least they were supposed to do so. Right now, as he stood in the rainstorm, the said spikes stuck neatly to his head and neck, making him look like a wet dog.

_/I look ridiculous./_

A mental sigh was heard somewhere in the back of his mind.

_/If you say so, yami. But could you start moving again? If you keep on standing in this rain, I'll get sick. – And before you tell me you don't care about that, I might point out that unless you want to control my_ sick _body, you'll be kept as a prisoner until I get better. Which usually takes quite long, remember?/_

Bakura flinched a little. Not caring to answer his host, he continued his way giving one last scowl at his reflection.

_/This shouldn't take long anymore, right? I mean... they seem to be somewhere near, and… Hey, yami, how do you know that the Ring is guiding us to the Pearlies and not to some other Millennium Item? I mean I'm not even sure those things they have are real Items, and…/_

_/Be quiet already!/_ Bakura snarled in his mind. _/The Ring does what I tell it to do – and so do you,/_ he added as he realized that Ryou was going to object something. With another sigh his host fell silent.

...

Somewhere not so far away a black-haired girl was staring at a shop window with a scowl.

_/I_ really _don't like rain./_

_/Then there are two of us… but it isn't so bad, is it? Look. Do you see how prettily it makes our hair frame our face? And luckily the mascara is waterproof, so it's not _that_ bad, yami./_

Black Pearl snorted. _/The mascara might be waterproof, but that can't really be said about this eyeliner you're using. Why do you always have to buy the cheapest they have?/_

_/…Because… it's the cheapest?/_

A sigh. _/You're impossible…/_

Someone laughed in the back of her head. _/Maybe. But let's cont…/_

Black Pearl stiffened suddenly. _/It's moving./_

_/Cont… continue… what?/_

The girl in the rain placed her hand on the hilt of a dagger she carried on her belt, closed her eyes tilting her head up a little, and let the rain wash her face. _/The Bracelet is moving, I can feel it… Not very fast, but still… But it is close./_

_/Oh my./_ Pearl sounded quite worried. _/Do you think that Azura has it?/_

Her yami shook her head. _/No. She's not close by… or at least, her Item is not, and I doubt she would have left it./_

_/Good,/_ Pearl breathed in relief. _/Then there's no problem. Let's go and get it!/_

Black Pearl nodded and ran into the rain.

* * *

So… I decided to cut it off here. ^^ I'm not sure if that was the best place, but… *shrugs* Anyway, I honestly will try to get the next chapter ready sooner. Although I don't think I'll promise anything… ^^;; Anyway, this time I have a part of it already written, so maybe there's some hope.

Thanks for reading this! ^^


	10. Singing in the Rain

Okay… let's see… it's been about two and a half weeks. That's better than a whole month, right? ^^;; Sorry for all the waiting, but it seems that I can't write faster than this.

There's a kind of duelling scene in this chapter. While reading it, keep in mind that I know next to nothing about duelling… ^^; And this is a Mary-Sue fic, after all. You wouldn't expect a first-class duel from one those, would you? *innocent look* Anyway, thanks again for your help, Flaed! ^^

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh nor _Singing in the Rain_. Or if I _do_ own them, someone has been playing foul for quite a long time…

**Review responses:**

Tamara Raymond: I'd say that you if anyone are qualified to give lectures on writing fics – especially humor fics. ^~ And yes, you are helping. And… I'm pretty sure that you know more than me, at least when we're talking about English…. I'm just glad that someone points out if I make mistakes – if no one does, I'll keep on making the same mistakes over and over again… so if you happen to spot something, don't hesitate telling me. ^^  
Hope you haven't died yet… ^^;;

Pikachumaniac: I never knew how easily influenced I am before I started writing this fic… Not necessarily a good thing. XD First chapter 6½ and then this… Anyway, you've got your… well, you know what. ^^; Hope you're happy now, at least for a moment…

Bloody Mary: Well, here you'll see what he'll do…^^;; It turned out… a little different than I had thought, but so what. Thanks for the review!

Opal Shadow: Hey, welcome back! ^^ Here's the 'big confrontation' for you… dunno how _big_ it is though, but anyway. ^^

kaibalover: Thanks! ^^ I'm glad you like this. I'll do my best to keep it good in future as well…

* * *

**Chapter 10: Singing in the Rain**

The current weather of Domino City was best described by one word: downpour. The streets were empty, as all sensible people sought refuge indoors. Still, there were some who defied the weather. A teenaged boy was running through the rain, eyes fixed on the trinkets of his pendant. A little ahead of him ran a black-haired girl, staring determinedly into emptiness as she jumped over puddles that were forming on the pavement. Somewhere a little ahead of her, a lonely figure danced forward singing happily from the top of his lungs.

"Singing in the rain… I'm singing in the rain… Daa daa dada daadam… I'm happy again…"

Otogi was happily ignorant of all the hunters that were on the move in the rain as he continued his way singing all the time and not caring at all of being thoroughly soaked.

"…laughing at the clouds, so dark up above, the sun's in my heart, and I'm reeeady for looooove…"

It was quite a good thing that there were no other pedestrians, because, to say it kindly, he was singing a little too loud, a little too high, and a little too much off tune for it to have been anything pleasant.

"Let the stormy clouds chaaase everyone…"

"Hey you!"

"…from the plaaace, come on with the… hey!"

"Give it here!"

"No way!"

"Give it here now!" Black Pearl snarled reaching for the bracelet Otogi was holding above his head.

_/Let me out, yami! Together we'll get it from him!/_

Otogi blinked as there suddenly were two black-haired girls clinging to him. "Huh? I haven't even been taking anything…"

"I'll get it, I'll get it …!" Pearl was shouting, reaching up towards the bracelet as her yami was trying to force Otogi's arms down. "I'll get it in a moment…"

"You there!"

"Huh?" The threesome ceased their struggling and turned to look at a lonely figure that was standing on the pavement glaring at them. A lightning flashed in the dark sky behind him, thunder's loud rumble drowning out all other sounds. The figure was wearing a long coat, and its end kept on blowing in the suddenly awakened wind. The light from the street lamps sent dark shadows over his face, making him look like a demon from the Hells, well, quite a wet demon, but still. At least this was how he appeared in Otogi's eyes. The two girls on the other hand stared at him openmouthed, the bracelet forgotten.

"It's him…" Black Pearl breathed.

"Oh my…" Pearl echoed her. "Is Ryou there too?"

Her yami wasn't listening to her. "Beloved!" she shouted and rushed towards him.

"Is Ryou there?" Pearl shouted and ran after her.

Otogi blinked as he watched the demon being chased away by the two girls.

"Well… that was weird." He shrugged. Weird, yes, but so what. Azura was waiting. With a happy smile he continued his way homewards.

"Hmm hmm hmm… I walk down the lane with a happy refraaiiin, I'm singing, just singing in the raaiiin!"

...

_/Why _are_ you running, yami?/_

Bakura glanced over his shoulder while running to see the two girls still following him. He could have left them easily behind if he had wanted to, but that wasn't a part of his plan.

_/I know just the right place to get rid of that annoying bug… anyway, I have to get them somewhere were no one can intervene…/_

Ryou gave a mental sigh. _/As if there were anyone here to intervene… Let me out./_

_/But…/_

_/Yami! You promised! I want to take care of her on my own./_

It was Bakura's turn to sigh. _/As you wish. Although I really don't understand what you imagine you can do alone…/ _

_/Thanks!/_ Ryou sent to his yami as he suddenly popped up in the rain. _/Wow, it_ is _horrible weather…/_

_/What did I tell you?/_

"Ryou!"

Glancing behind Ryou saw that the girls were already quite close by, and he started quickly to run into the opposite direction than his yami. As he looked back again he saw that Pearl started to follow him, just as he had hoped.

_Good… just come after me. I'll… I'll… I'll what?_

Truth to tell, he didn't have any idea, but in any case, Pearl was obeying. She seemed to be a surprisingly fast runner… he didn't know if she was getting strength from her 'eternal love' or what, but as it was, she was actually catching up with him. Which she was _not_ supposed to do yet… This all was happening a little too fast. With a sinking feeling he realized that his yami was probably right… what _could_ he do alone? Although it was quite safe to say that he hated this girl, he still wasn't any ruthless murderer with maniacal streaks. Besides, it _was_ a girl he was talking – or thinking – about, and one wasn't supposed to hit girls.

The said girl was getting a little too close for it being comfortable. He rushed forward in the empty alley, took a turn to left, and faced – a dead end.

_Dang it…_ He came to a staggering halt, trying desperately to come up with a plan. Unfortunately it felt as if all the ideas had been washed away from his mind with the rain. Starting to feel like a cornered deer he glanced frantically around. Suddenly his eyes stopped on a ladder attached to a building and…

"Oh, Ryou!"

…not wasting any more time on thinking he rushed to it and started to climb up.

"Oh, what are you doing _now_?" came an exasperated voice from below. "I don't like high places…"

_Then stay down_, Ryou thought but remained quiet, mostly because he had run quite out of breath. Unfortunately Pearl didn't obey him, and soon he heard her climbing up after him.

As he got up he took a glance around and realized that now he really was cornered. The roof wasn't any large place, and he couldn't see any other way to get down than the ladder he had just used. He ran to the other end of the roof and glanced down. Too high up to jump… he wasn't _that_ desperate.

_I really should have planned this more carefully…_ He looked behind himself just in time to see Pearl's head coming into view. _Oh my…_ Panic was starting to get good hold of him by now. _Think now, think… what would yami do in a situation like this? Okay, he probably wouldn't _get_ into a situation like this but…_

"Ryou!" Pearl had finally managed to drag herself up to the roof. "Finally I found you, my dear!"

A lightning flashed in the sky, and Ryou tried not to think about the dangers of being in a high, open spot during a thunderstorm. Maybe, if he were lucky, the lighting would strike Pearl and not him.

"Oh honey…" Pearl was getting closer to him shaking her head reproachfully. "Why were you running like that? It is not very polite, you know. It was almost as if you were trying to avoid me. You really shouldn't treat girls like that, it's not…"

A crazy, desperate idea had entered Ryou's mind, and since it was the only idea he had…

He threw his head back, and – wishing for stroke of lighting and almost jumping up in the air when he got one – gave the best imitation of maniacal laughter he could. Not perfect, but quite good… after all, he had had long time to observe the master of the art in action.

Pearl stopped and stared at him with wide eyes. Ryou finished his laughter with coughing – he almost got rainwater going down the wrong way. Before that managed to ruin the effect of the laughter, he pointed out an accusing finger.

"Foolish mortal! You have no idea what you're playing with!"

Pearl blinked and took a hesitant step backwards. "Ryou…?"

Ryou resisted an urge to giggle. It was actually fun to see Pearl's reaction… no wonder his yami liked doing things like this.

Somewhere, not very far away, Yami no Bakura blinked while still running.

_What is that idiot doing now?_

He had been following a little worriedly all the panicking emotions he had felt from Ryou – not that he cared about the boy, of course, but it might be that he'd still, some day, have use for his host.

But the boy had better _not_ to start doing things like this very often. He couldn't help feeling a little offended; how could some greenhorn like his host even imagine that he could imitate the greatest of all thieves, one who had spread horror and fear into the hearts of men already thousands of years ago? That was plain _insulting_.

He snorted. Well, at least the idiot appeared to be getting by, and he'd be able to ignore him from now on. Anyway, he had almost reached his destination.

On the roof Ryou was laughing again, this time making it sure that he wouldn't get any rainwater in his mouth. Pearl was looking at him with growing worry. Either her Ryou had completely lost his mind, or then…. Ryou's voice cut her thought off.

"Did you imagine that you would be able to enchant _me_? Oh, you will pay for this!" Time for another mad laugh. "You… will… _pay_! I will feed you to my Man-Eater Bug!"

With a flashy move he drew a random piece of paper out of his pocket and held it up in the air. Pearl took one look at it and turned then on her heels. It hardly mattered whether the one before her was her beloved or not – she wasn't going to stay here.

"No use! You won't be able to run from me!"

Just as she glanced over her shoulder a lightning flashed on the sky, followed instantly by the loud rumbling of thunder. The lightning illuminated the _creature_ that was running after her, mouth open in a howl, mad light gleaming in its eyes…. In that instant she knew. This wasn't the gentle boy she loved, this was some devilish spirit that was a danger to her very soul. With a loud scream she stumbled towards the ladder, the only thought in her mind to get quickly away from here.

"Scream! Just scream, girl! Once my Bug reaches you, you will…"

Still screaming, Pearl had reached the ladder, and as she hastily began to climb down her foot slipped on a slippery rung. The scream didn't cease before she hit the ground below.

Ryou stopped on the roof and stood there frozen to the spot for a moment.

"Oops…"

Hesitantly he walked to the roof's edge and looked down. Pearl was lying on the ground, unmoving. Ryou blinked.

_Oh my. I guess I got a little carried away._

...

Finally there. There was a little park in the outskirts of the city. Behind it there was a small forest, dark and eerie in the thunderstorm, and in the middle of the forest there was a small clearing.

Bakura stopped in the middle of it and turned to face his pursuer.

"Finally you stopped…" Black Pearl panted as she reached the clearing. _I'm not sure if I could have continued running for long anymore…_ Not that she'd say that aloud, though. "So…" she took a deep breath, trying to catch her breath, and walked carefully towards Bakura "Finally we're together again. Don't run from me anymore, love – together we will be undefeatable. We can bring back those golden days when we used…" Suddenly her eyes widened.

"Hikari…"

Mouth half open she stared into emptiness, trying to comprehend what had just happened. The link to Pearl was gone. That could mean only one thing…

Bakura shook his head as he felt the guilt floating to him from Ryou. _Idiot. Isn't that what you were_ supposed _to do in the first place?_

"_Pearl!_"

Black Pearl's shout cut off his thought, and he turned his attention back to the black-haired girl. She was staring at the dark sky, mouth frozen into a grimace, the bright flashes of lightning reflecting on her black eyes.

Bakura frowned. _Time to take action,_ he thought, but before he could do anything, Black Pearl turned her flaming eyes to him.

"He… _he_… That cursed light side of yours… He killed my hikari!"

"Indeed," Bakura snorted. "That might give you a clue on what I'm going to do."

"Really?" Black Pearl's grimace turned into something wicked. "You can try to, _love_." She drew her dagger from her belt just as Bakura took his cards into his hands. "Go on, dear, use your powers."

Bakura watched her with growing suspicion as she smirked at him fingering the dagger. He had been planning to drag her to the Shadow Realm and defeat her there, but now he paused to reconsider for a moment. The situation wasn't as tightly in his control as he would have liked. Firstly there was this weird weapon of which powers he knew nothing about, and secondly, Black Pearl was quite certainly wearing the accursed mascara again. Refusing to look away from her, he kept on staring at her nose, trying to figure out what she would be able to do with her dagger.

It was quite a pretty nose, really.

He blinked. "Is that mascara on your nose?" he asked looking at the said body part with a small frown.

It was Black Pearl's turn to blink as she wiped her nose with her hand.

"What the…" After she had disbelievingly stared the black stain on her hand for a moment, she began hastily to search through her pockets.

"Just wait a moment… where did I put it… oh, there!"

Flipping open a small pocket mirror she began to examine her nose and eyes very carefully.

"Oh, damn… She _said_ it's waterproof! No wonder my eyes have been stinging… huh?"

Blinking again she looked around as the surroundings suddenly twitched in her eyes and turned into something very dark.

Bakura was smirking at her in his turn. "Always keep your attention on your enemy."

Black Pearl snorted. "Oh, I will from this on, don't worry. Besides, this doesn't really matter. If you want to duel me here, just go on."

He paused again, still quite suspicious, squeezing tightly his deck in his hand.

"Ladies first," he grunted finally. Maybe her first card would give him some clues.

Black Pearl smiled. "A gentleman, aren't you? As you wish."

She shuffled her deck, drew then five cards and looked at them with a smile. "Well… I think I will summon… The Amazing Crocodile Woman of the Nile in attack mode!"

Bakura blinked as a big womanlike creature with crocodile's head and tail appeared before him. _I've never even heard about such a monster…_

"Direct attack!"

He blinked again. "What? You can't attack yet…"

His protest died on his lips as the crocodile's big tail hit him in the chest knocking him down.

Black Pearl smiled down at him as he scrambled back to his feet. "That is the special effect of my monster, honey. It can attack at any point of the game I want it to. Anyway, it took your lifepoints down a bit, didn't it? What's it we started from? 8000? Then I'm afraid you have only 6000 left now…"

Bakura scowled at her. "Did you end your turn?" he grunted. "Cause if you did…"

She shrugged with a smirk. "I guess I did."

"Good," Bakura muttered looking down at his cards. What to play… He glanced at the crocodile-thing with a frown. A monster like that could be very handy. Very powerful, and…

_Hey, wait a minute! How was she able to summon such a powerful monster without any sacrifices?_

He shot a suspicious glance at Black Pearl who just smiled at him sweetly. _I have a bad feeling about this…_ He turned his gaze back to the cards. There was Ryou's favorite card staring back at him in his hand, side by side with the Man-Eater Bug. Usually he would have spared cards like that to be used later in the game, but this wasn't 'usually'.

He drew the two cards slowly from his hand. "I play the Man-Eater Bug face down, and then…" Baring his teeth in what was supposed to be a grin he raised the other card up in the air. "I summon the Change of Heart! She'll take over your Crocodile Woman and add it to my troops! Take that, bitch! You're going to taste your own medicine!" he gave his trademark maniacal laughter – which, I might add, compared Ryou's laughter, was in a class of its own. If Ryou sounded slightly disturbed at the very best, this was the first-class I'm-the-pinnacle-of-darkness-so-you'd-better-run-and-fast laughter that made everyone who heard it shiver and call for their moms.

Anyway, yes, it was a very disturbing laughter. Bakura well knew this, of course – anyway, why else would he be doing it? – and so _he_ found it slightly disturbing that Black Pearl only pouted a little and said matter-of-factly:

"You're no fun."

Then she drew her dagger, threw it towards the Crocodile Woman that had turned to face her, and watched with satisfaction as it staggered backwards and suddenly disappeared.

Bakura's laughter died away.

"Wha… what did you do?"

Black Pearl shrugged. "What did it look like? Killed it. Sent it to the Graveyard. Did you think I'd let you to play with my toys?"

Bakura was staring at her with wide eyes. "Bu… bu… but that's _cheating_!"

Black Pearl snorted. "Look who's talking…" The dagger had returned to her hand and she flipped it few times. "This is quite fun, though…" Suddenly she grasped the dagger tightly and threw it again through the air. "Now let's take care of that _disgusting_ thing…"

Being attacked activated the flip effect of the Man-Eater Bug. It suddenly moved to attack mode but got the dagger in its chest at the same time, and immediately it exploded away.

Black Pearl started to laugh but stopped soon as she saw no signs of her dagger. "What? Where did it go!" She glanced frantically around as Bakura began to smirk in his turn.

"I guess one of two things happened. The Man-Eater Bug automatically destroys one of the monsters on the field when its flip effect is activated, and if it is attacked, it destroys the monster that attacks it. On the other hand, if there are no monsters to destroy, it destroys itself. So, I guess it either self-destructed and took you dagger with it, or then it saw the dagger as an attacking monster and destroyed it while being itself 'killed' by the dagger."

Black Pearl was beginning to look very white. "Aha…" she breathed. "Umm…" She glanced hesitantly at the cards in her hand. "Well, I guess I'll play..."

"I didn't end my turn yet, _honey_," Bakura said sweetly, and started to draw another card from his hand.

A panicked look took over Black Pearl's face. "Hey… hey, wait! Wait… we don't really have to be doing this, do we?"

"We don't?" Bakura raised an eyebrow. "Do you forfeit, then?"

"W…well, no, but…" Black Pearl glanced hesitantly at her cards and looked then back at him. "We're in love, aren't we! So why should we be battling?"

Bakura snorted. "You may be 'in love' as much as you want to, but don't get me involved."

He considered a moment and put then the card back. For a moment Black Pearl looked relieved, but then her face fell as Bakura drew another card from his hand.

"I will play the Electric Lizard in defense," he stated, and the big-mouthed, violet lizard appeared on the scene.

Black Pearl winced. "Are _all_ your monsters that ugly?"

Bakura blinked. "What do you mean?"

"I don't like ugly monsters…" Black Pearl muttered under her breath, giving the lizard a disgusted look.

"Your crocodile thing wasn't ugly?"

She shifted nervously. "…It was cool."

Bakura looked at her unbelievingly. "I'm getting more and more convinced that I've _never_ in my life had anything to do with you. Quite a 'thief queen' you must have made… Anyway, I end my turn." _Interesting to see what she'll do…_

"Uh… okay." She looked at her cards with a frown. "Uh… I guess… I'll play The Fairy of Mythical Rainbows in attack mode. Yeah. That's it."

A small fairy-like creature with glistening wings, long golden hair and a rainbow-colored dress appeared hovering a foot or two above the ground. It held a magic wand in its hand.

"Attack!"

The fairy raised the magic wand and small rainbows started to circle it. Gradually they formed into one big rainbow that flashed towards the Electric Lizard. Nothing happened to it, though.

Black Pearl blinked. "What?"

"You really don't know this game that well, do you?" Bakura smirked at her shocked expression. "You've just crippled your… uh, monster by yourself. If the Electric Lizard is attacked, the attacker cannot do anything for a turn."

"Oh." Black Pearl kept on staring at the lizard as if she wouldn't believe it still was standing there.

"By the way…" Bakura couldn't resist his curiousness. "What would that rainbow thing have done?"

Black Pearl blinked rapidly few times, forcing herself back to the cruel reality. "It would have changed that ugly thing into a rainbow in the sky."

Bakura stared at her eyes wide, then blinked as well. "Huh? That has to be the most idiotic effect I've heard about…"

Black Pearl shot him an angry glance. "At least it would have made it prettier!"

"Prettier." The word came out very flat, and Black Pearl flared up.

"Well, _I_ like it! Pearl and me designed it ourse… uh…" she snapped her mouth quickly shut.

Bakura stared at her incredulously. "_You_ made that?" He glanced at the fairy. That was certainly interesting. "Well, that explains some things… and it proves that if you lived in the Ancient Egypt, the only thing you could have been is a fashion designer. And a very bad one. And since there really weren't those then…"

"Whatever," Black Pearl muttered, staring at her cards again.

And she kept on staring at them.

The fairy hang in the air, frozen, the Lizard faced it, looking actually bored, nothing moved in the darkness around them. The only sound there was came from Bakura's tapping foot.

"Are you going to do something or not?" he finally snapped angrily.

Black Pearl glanced at him. "Just give me time, I'll figure this out in a moment."

And she kept on staring at the cards.

After a couple of minutes, the tapping was louder and faster. Then, finally, she looked up from her cards.

"Okay, I'm ready."

With that she dropped the cards and ran.

For a moment Bakura stared after her not able to believe that she had just done that. _Does that count as forfeiting? So… I won, did I? Who cares anyway!_

He glanced at the Lizard that was still standing on the ground and pointed then after the fleeing girl.

"The duel's over! After her!"

Mouth open and big teeth shining the monster ran happily after her. The expression on Bakura's face didn't differ much of its grin.

_Fool… where does she think she'll be able to hide here?_

The grin turned even more demonic as he ran after the beast. _Don't like ugly monsters, huh? Well, I do have few to spare… and you're supposed to share everything with the one you 'love', right? Right._

He called for his monsters, one after another, and gradually the darkness was filled with their howls and roars. The horrified screams of one girl were completely drowned by the noise they made, and soon they died away. The growls of the monsters faded away as well, and finally the only sound echoing in the darkness was that of maniacal laughter.

...

About half an hour later a very happy and content Bakura found his host hunching under an eaves not far away from the place where they had separated.

"Hi!" He flashed a bright smile at the other, but Ryou didn't notice anything since he kept on staring at the ground.

Bakura was, quite naturally, totally unaware of this. "This was even easier than I thought," he said cheerfully and continued walking onward dragging Ryou with himself. "And quite much fun too. You should have seen her once my monsters caught up with her, it was…"

"Yami…"

"…quite amazing how high-pitched her…"

"Yami!"

"…voice could get, as…"

"Yami, shut up!"

"…as… huh?" Bakura shot a confused glance at the other boy. Then he snorted as he saw Ryou's miserable expression. "Come on, isn't this what you wanted? To get rid of her? Now she won't bother you ever again."

Ryou sighed. "It was almost a murder," he muttered quietly.

Bakura snorted again. "Well, you can always blame it on me if it makes you feel better. I'm obviously a bad influence on you. Which reminds me…" he shot a sharp glance at Ryou. "Never do something like that again."

"Don't worry, I'm not planning to…" Ryou continued his way staring at the ground, looking even more miserable then before.

Shaking his head Bakura gave up on trying to him cheer up.

"Don't even imagine that I'm going to let you to ruin this…" he muttered under his breath. "Spoilsport. I haven't had this much fun for ages. …what was that song the idiot was singing? Something like…" he cleared his throat. "_Singing in the rain, I'm…_"

Ryou winced. "Please yami, _don't_."

* * *

A/N: Okay, let's see… who's left… There are the Auroras and then Azura, but I think that all others are gone by now. I hope I haven't forgotten anyone… *checks her list*

Poor Jou and Honda have out of the picture for long… I think it was in chapter 7 since we last saw anything of them. I guess they're still lost there in the back streets, poor boys… ^^; *suddenly remembers something* And Yami. ^^;; Oh yes, I guess he'll have to be in the next chapter too.

By the way, I wrote a side-fic like thingy for this fic (although I'm not sure if I really want to go around advertising that thing). It's another look on how things could have gone when Otogi was searching for the bracelet. ^~ I posted it in my LJ (the link's in my bio… just search for the post with title 'MSI, chapter X') but there are a couple of warnings: it contains yaoi and is rated R. And it might be hazardous for all intelligent life, too…


	11. Games, Murders, and Sleeping Beauties

Too tired to say anything intelligent right now… okay, there's nothing new in that. Let's put it like this: too tired to say _anything_ right now. Except… do you still remember Yuki? The seal? Check author's notes in the end of chapter 4 if you don't.

**Review Responses:**

Tokemi: Many thanks! I'm really glad you like this. That problem is very familiar to me… these days I very seldom read anything that's not in my fav list (or in the fav lists of my fav authors). I'm afraid this wasn't exactly 'post-haste', but at least I'm continuing. ^^; That's always a good thing, right…?

Bloody Mary: ^^ I love the Bakurae as well. Couple of my favorite characters… Thanks for the review!

Opal Shadow: 3 to go, and counting. ^ ~ I'm glad that you still like this, and thanks for the review.

Tamara Raymond: Once again, thank you. I'm glad that you mentioned the "all the ideas had been washed away" line… it came to me in Finnish, and then I translated it but I wasn't sure if it worked in English as well (usually the translations don't work). I was wondering about it a little… *bows* Thanks for all the praise. ^^;

Ethelflaed: Don't worry, I don't care when you review, as long as you do it some day. ^~ We all love reviews, right… And after all, that happens to me too sometimes… "Black Pearl's cards don't exist. That's the point..." *grin* Want to know the main reason for that? Giving her cards and rules of her own made writing the duel _so_ much easier… ^^

Yami Hitokiri: Welcome back! Hmm… I guess that Yami no Malik was having a bad day then… and it'll get worse when he realizes what's happened. Not in this chapter though. Anyway, does this count as 'near future'? ^^;

**Disclaimer:** I _still_ haven't gained the ownership of Yu-Gi-Oh, and all the white seals _still_ belong to PM. Nothing new here, in other words.

* * *

**Chapter 11: Games, Murders, and Sleeping Beauties**

Still humming, Otogi waltzed into his home. The scent of incense greeted him at the door, and he followed it to the bedroom. He stopped at the bedroom door and watched the sleeping figure with a small smile. She was so beautiful, when she was relaxed like that… so innocent and pure, the perfect angel. He walked quietly to the bed and bent down to watch the sleeping girl. A part of him didn't want to wake her, but on the other hand, he was really impatient to show her that he had fulfilled his mission with success.

Gently he tapped on her shoulder.

"Azura? Light of my days? Wake up…"

She stirred a little and muttered something incomprehensible.

"Sweetheart?" Otogi tugged her a little harder. "Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me…"

Azura turned over and hugged her pillow. "Just a little longer," she muttered.

Otogi sighed. "As you wish, honey." He looked sadly at the bracelet in his hand. "I just would have liked to tell you I got the bracelet, but if you…"

"You got it?" Azura jumped up suddenly making him to jump a little as well. With a quick move she grasped the bracelet and stared at it with a grin. "Great. Wonderful. Totally… I need a shower."

With that she got up from the bed and almost ran to the bathroom, leaving Otogi to sit alone on the bed.

He stared a little sadly after her. _Well, at least it made her happy._

...

"We _really_ should help them, niisama."

Seto glared out of the car window, strictly avoiding his younger brother's begging eyes. In theory he would have thought that with time he'd grow even some resistance to Mokuba's puppy eyes act, but that didn't seem to be the case. Big watery eyes, a little quivering lower lip, and a blaming gaze, and all his polished defenses came stumbling down.

"I don't have time for that. There are so many things I've been ignoring lately that it's a miracle Kaiba Corp. is still running." He kept on staring out of the window as he heard Mokuba sit back with a sigh.

They had left from Kaiba Corp. about ten minutes ago, leaving Yuugi and others behind. He didn't know what they were going to do, but after all, it wasn't he's problem. Really, it wasn't.

The silence in the car was quite chilly. Seto stared at the houses flashing by. He couldn't help it, but even though he wasn't looking at his brother, the picture of Mokuba's unhappy face was floating in the front of his eyes. Making him feel guilty. Yes… that was probably the one thing in the world that managed to do _that_.

"Fine!" he finally exclaimed. "Take us to the Kame Game Shop," he grunted then to he chauffeur. At the same moment, a beaming Mokuba was clinging to his neck.

"Thanks, niisama! You're the greatest!"

"I know," Seto muttered, pushing him back a little angrily, still refusing to look at him. He just couldn't believe he had fallen for it again.

...

Azura didn't linger long in the shower. The hair dryer started soon blowing in the bathroom, and in a moment she rushed out of it.

"Honey…" Otogi started to say, but she ran past him.

"Not now." She went to the front door, jumped into her shoes, snatched her coat, and in a second she was already outside.

"But…" Otogi stared after her by the door.

"Sorry, honey." She flashed a quick smile at him. "I have to be going."

"But…" A taxi drove past and she stopped it. Otogi blinked slowly as it drove away. This wasn't how things were supposed to go. She didn't even thank him! She was supposed to be awed by his heroic deed, and now she was rushing away, who knew where.

Maybe she had someone else.

Otogi frowned. Impossible thought, but… then again, who knew with women?

He walked back in and closed the door behind his back. He would have to do something about this. Maybe her friends knew what she was up to… he could go to meet them. But first… he took a look at himself in a mirror and grimaced. He'd have some use for that hair dryer as well.

As he walked to the bathroom he suddenly realized that rain had stopped and the sun was shining again. _Figures. Just when I got out of it._

...

In the game shop, Aurora was sitting in her room (or in what used to be Yuugi's room, but since you share everything with the one you love, it was naturally her room as well), reading some mode magazine, but she couldn't really concentrate on it. Her yami was discussing with Yuugi's yami about the current situation. Nightfall was acting as if everything were under her control, but she knew better. With a sigh she placed the magazine down and took the mascara out of her pocket. She stared at it thoughtfully, beginning to wonder if this all really was worth it.

In the living room Nightfall was walking in circles, talking constantly, while Yami sat on a chair by the table.

"It's quite impossible, I don't understand how this could happen… that she'd really betray us like that. And what's keeping those Pearls? It can't take this long to fetch one stupid item. Idiots. They're all idiots, I don't understand how I could ever get involved with people like that. I should…"

Yami wasn't really listening to her. Ever since he'd come back he had had this throbbing headache, which was only getting worse all he time. Actually, he had a feeling he had got it even earlier than that, but he wasn't sure. He was feeling vaguely guilty, he knew that Nightfall was stressed and that he should help her, but at the moment, thinking was very hard. It hurt.

"Idiot." Nightfall had stopped walking for a while and stared accusingly at her coffee cup. "She's an idiot. An impudent idiot. I should have known it… from the way she was all the time telling me what to do, telling me how to use my own mascara, _everything_!" She glanced sharply at Yami. "Are you listening, honey?"

Yami managed a weak smile. "Sure."

"Good." Nightfall resumed her walking with a sigh. "Well, at least I have you. My powerful Pharaoh… I've never understood what Aurora sees in your other half. That boy is so… weak."

She continued talking, but Yami had stopped to wonder her words. Other half? Was she talking about that little guy who used to live in this house as well some time ago? The one he had hit when he had been in Nightfall's way? Now that he thought about that, it did made him feel a little guilty, for some reason. He frowned a little hoping that his head wouldn't have ached so much.

"Personally, I'm just glad he's gone. Ever since that day in the park I've been thinking that he's a little _too_ cute. It's almost sickening, you know? No one shouldn't be that…"

_Cute?_ Yami frowned. Yes, maybe that boy could be described with that word, he had never really thought about it. But what was this about a 'day in the park'? He hadn't been in any park lately, had he? He did have some vague memories about some park, though.

Finally Nightfall stopped her spacing and sat down on a chair beside Yami. He tried to look at her admiringly, but the look turned out a little pained. Nightfall didn't pay any attention to it, though, since she had noticed that she had sat on something.

"Where did _you_ come from?" she muttered glaring at a white stuffed seal.

Yami blinked. "Oh… that's Yuki. It's mine." He reached for it, but Nightfall only shot him an exasperated glance and threw the seal into a corner.

"Don't you think you're a _little_ too old to be playing with stuffed animals?"

Yami didn't listen to her, instead he was staring at the seal. He had a feeling that it was in some way connected to that boy Nightfall had been talking about.

"Are you listening to me!" she yelled suddenly, making Yami to jump a little. "Forget that idiotic seal! Why the hell are you staring at it when I am here?"

Yami blinked again, this time a little irritatedly. All this yelling wasn't really making his headache better. "I just like it," he muttered.

"Like it." Nightfall snorted. "You're supposed to like _me_, not anything else." She glared at the seal, got then up from her chair, and walked to it.

"What are you going to do?" Yami asked suspiciously when she picked the seal up.

She smiled at him sweetly. "To get rid of this, naturally. It's really in the serious need of some chopping."

"But I like it," Yami protested quietly as she walked out of the room.

Chopping. Yuki. Headache. _Not_ a good day. Suddenly, something flared up inside him and he bounced on his feet. "I said that I like it, damn you! _Yuugi_ gave it to me!"

He blinked, once more. Yuugi… that was the name of the small boy, wasn't it? The name of his light…. For a moment he stood frozen staring into emptiness. When he finally rushed after Nightfall there was new light blazing in his eyes.

He found Nightfall in the kitchen where she was holding Yuki in her other hand and a big knife in the other.

"You…" he grunted slowly, memories of the day in the park floating to his mind. "By Ra… what's been going on here?"

"What?" Nightfall turned to look at him with a start. "Oh…" She placed Yuki and the knife on the kitchen table and walked to Yami staring into his eyes. "Is something wrong, honey?"

"Yes. _You_ are wrong. Where is Yuugi?" Yami's voice was low and composed.

Nightfall blinked. "Take it easy, honey. Just look into my eyes, and…"

"Damn your eyes!" Yami shouted. "What do you think you're doing? What have you done to Yuugi?"

Nightfall twitched nervously. _Could it be that she was right… could he really have developed immunity to the mascara?_ "I don't know where he is," she said aloud. "He ran away. Listen, beloved…"

"I am not your beloved," Yami stated coldly. "Nor have I never been. I don't know who you are or what you want but I know that you have _never_ been my wife. I…"

Nightfall cut him off calmly. "I challenge you to a Shadow Game."

"I… I…" Yami did a very good impression of a fish on dry land. "That was my line!" he finally exclaimed.

"I know, honey." Nightfall smiled at him. "That is why I said it. So…" She sat on a chair by the table. "Since I challenged you, I will choose the game."

She was silent for a moment, thinking deeply as Yami sat warily down on the other side of the table.

She smiled. "A game of imagination." _I shouldn't lack that… so much of all this is my doing, anyway. _ "It's easy. I say something like 'I'm a fly, buzzing in the air' and you have to continue immediately 'I'm a flyswatter, smashing the fly', and so on. There will be gate to Shadow Realm on this table, it'll be our judge. The one who doesn't come up with anything to say loses. Do you get it?"

Yami blinked. "I'm a… flyswatter? Well, you surely are a fly…" He nodded. "Let the Game begin."

"Good." Nightfall thought for a moment while an entrance to the shadow realm opened upon the table and small tentacles of darkness reached towards both players. "I'm a lark, singing high in the sky," she said finally, looking dreamily at the ceiling.

"I'm a sparrowhawk, eating the lark," Yami continued right away.

She frowned a little as the tentacle that hovered in the front of Yami flashed approvingly. "I'm a dragon, burning the sparrowhawk with my fire."

Yami took a more relaxed position in his chair. "I'm a storm wind, throwing the dragon down."

"I am a mountain, splitting the wind into two!"

"I'm an earthquake, flattening the mountain to the ground."

Nightfall was quiet for a brief moment but continued soon, "I'm a powerful spiritual being, unaffected by earthquakes. In other words, I am me." She smirked a little as Yami stared at her, for a moment not quite believing how huge her ego was.

"I'm even more powerful spiritual being, defeating the spirit you are."

Nightfall glared him, and he added with a smirk of his own, "In other words, I am me."

"No way! You're not stronger than I am!"

"Really?" Yami raised his eyebrows. "The Shadow Realm isn't reacting, so the answer was accepted. Are you going to continue?"

Nightfall fumed at him. "I am… I'm a goddess, all-powerful!"

Yami snorted. "Hardly," he muttered under his breath. "Then, I am Fate, crushing the goddess."

"I don't believe in fate."

"Who cares about what you believe in. What's the problem? Imagination starting to run dry?"

"No!" Nightfall shot an angry glance at him. "I… I am… I am a… a… even more powerful goddess! Defeating the Fate!"

Yami stared at the tentacle of Shadow Realm that reached closer to Nightfall. "That doesn't seem to be a good enough answer."

"But… but it has to be!" Nightfall swiped at the tentacle with her other hand. "It is good enough cause I say it's good enough! _I_ decide what's good enough here! Do you understand me?" She glared at the tentacle that was still crawling closer to her while Yami stared at her incredulously. _She_ has _to be crazy…_

Nightfall jumped to her feet. "It _is_ good enough!" she screamed. Just then the doorbell rang quietly, but neither of them paid any attention to it. "I said it is good enough!"

Yami shook his head. "I suggest that you come up with something else, and quickly. Otherwise, you lost."

Nightfall turned her glare at him with a laugh. "You're a fool. I cannot lose. I control what happens here. The reality follows my wishes. I cannot lose."

"Then… how do you explain that?" Yami gestured towards the tentacle that was touching Nightfall's forehead.

She grimaced. "It means nothing. It doesn't matter…"

Yami pointed his finger towards her. "You lost. Punishment Game!"

"It doesn't matter, it's… just…" She blinked, suddenly feeling herself very drowsy. What had she been going to say? Why was she in bed? Wasn't she, just a moment ago, been playing a game with Yami? Right now it felt like a dream….

She frowned a little, listening to the birds singing outside of her window. _I'm a lark, singing…_ What was that? Had she dreamed that she was a lark?

Suddenly the door to the room opened, and a young woman dressed in white stepped in. She walked to her bed and bent down to smile at her.

"Oh, you're awake. Good morning. How are we today?"

She stared at the white-dressed woman, blinking slowly. "Who are you?" she croaked, and then fell silent in a shock. _Is that my voice? Can't be…_

The other sighed a little sadly. "So, you have forgotten me again… I'm Kathy. The nurse-girl, remember? Now, get up… it's time to go to eat breakfast."

Kathy helped her to sit up in the bed. As she was sitting on its edge, her eyes fell on her hands, and she blinked again, more shocked than before. Those _couldn't_ be her hands, could they? Those small, wrinkled, powerless things… She wasn't old… or was she? At the moment, she really couldn't remember.

"I had a boyfriend," she thought aloud. "A Pharaoh…"

Kathy laughed as she helped her up. "What on earth have you been dreaming? Oh, come now. Your friends are already waiting."

She raised her head quickly. "Friends?" Aurora, Pearl, Felicia… but Felicia was dead, wasn't she?

"The other people who live in this old people's home," Kathy said sympathetically.

"Oh…" _Dream… I guess I was only dreaming…_

Kathy helped her to put her dressing gown on, and then led her by the arm out of the room.

...

When the doorbell rang, Aurora ran to answer it. As she ran by the kitchen she heard her yami yelling something about 'it being good enough', whatever 'it' was. She shook her head as she opened the door. Nightfall really should try to take it easier, she was getting too worked up over this.

"Hi."

"Uh… hi." She stared suspiciously at Azura who smiled at her brightly.

"May I come in?"

"Yeah, I guess," Aurora said nervously, but didn't move away to give her room. "What do you want?"

"Oh, I have to use the mascara again, so if you… Hey, you have it with you!"

Aurora took a step back fingering nervously the mascara she was still holding in her hand. "Well, yes, but…"

"What? Don't you want to let me to use it?" Azura stared at her through narrowed eyes, and she gulped.

"Oh, I didn't mean that, but…" _/Yami, I need help here! …Yami? What's going on?/_

She turned to look behind, suddenly scared. "Ya…" she started to shout, but just then she felt a hot, tearing pain between her shoulder blades. "Ah… yami…" She grasped the doorjamb, trying to stay on her feet, but it was hard, too hard. As she fell down to the floor she glanced over her shoulder and saw Azura leaning against the door, a bloodied knife in her hand.

"Wha… what you…" she slurred, but talking was difficult. The world was getting dizzy around her, and the pain in her back wasn't sharp anymore, it was getting duller all the time, she was getting duller… With a sigh she closed her eyes, and her head fell to the floor with a quiet thud.

Azura wiped her knife and bent down to pick up the mascara. "Thanks." She closed the door after herself and walked back to the taxi that was waiting for her.

...

"Did that taxi leave from the game shop?" Shizuka asked frowning a little as she peered after the disappearing car.

"Huh?" Yuugi looked up with a blink. "Did it?" He too looked out of the car window but the taxi had already disappeared from sight.

Sugoroku shrugged as he parked his van by the pavement a little away from the shop. "It looked like that, but it's difficult to say for sure."

"Maybe the girls left somewhere and left Yami alone," Yuugi said, his voice so hopeful that Anzu didn't have the heart to voice her doubts.

_Even if they did, this won't be easy…._

When they had separated from Kaiba and Mokuba at the Kaiba Corp. they – Yuugi, Anzu, Mai, Shizuka and Sugoroku, that is – had left to the game shop. They still didn't know what they'd be able to do, but in the end they had decided that gathering some intelligence (i.e. spying) would be as good way to proceed as any in the current situation.

As they walked towards the house, Yuugi couldn't help getting more and more nervous with every step he took. A bunch of butterflies was flying around in his stomach, making him feel a little queasy. Maybe the girls were home after all. He shuddered a little as thought about facing them. He really wasn't sure if he'd be up to it. And then… even if the girls weren't home, it was quite probable that Yami wouldn't be too enthusiastic about getting saved. What would he do if, instead of facing the girls, they'd had to fight with Yami? What would he do if _he'd_ have to fight with Yami? The very idea was totally impossible.

"Hey…"

He startled a little as a hand patted him comfortingly on the shoulder.

"Don't be so worried," Anzu continued, smiling at him. "We'll be here with you, you know. And we'll find a way to make everything right again."

Yuugi smiled back at her, feeling a little relieved, just as Sugoroku told them to stop.

"We can't go closer than this, if they are home they'll notice us." He looked at the house thoughtfully. "Yuugi… you are the smallest. Why don't you go to see if you can take a look inside through the windows?"

Suddenly the butterflies were back in action.

"Me?"

"Just go," Anzu whispered. "We'll be right here."

"Uh… okay." _For Yami,_ he thought, deciding to ignore the butterflies. With a determined look he started to tiptoe towards the house.

"Try to keep your hair from the view," he heard Anzu whisper behind himself, and bent down a little more.

Everything appeared to be very calm at the game shop. He peeked in from a couple of windows, but couldn't see anything.

_Maybe they _have_ gone away,_ he thought trying to calm down. _There doesn't seem to be anyone…_

"Hey, Yuugi! What are you doing?"

The sudden shout made him jump a feet in the air with a little yelp. At the same time he heard Anzu's angry voice.

"Jou, you _idiot_! Be quiet!"

Yuugi winced. _Same to you…_

Since everything was still quiet at the house despite of all the shouting, he gestured to the others to come closer.

"Do you think we should go in?" he whispered as they arrived.

"We could at least take a look," Sugoroku answered, whispering as well, and took his key from his pocket.

Jou and Honda glanced at each other bemusedly. "Why are we whispering?" Jou asked and Anzu whacked him with her bag.

"Be quiet! We're saving Yami."

Jou and Honda shared another bemused look. "You mean, you five on your own are…" Honda started to say, but fell silent when Mai glared at him.

"Something wrong with that?"

Honda was saved from replying when Sugoroku opened the door.

It took a moment till the sight in front of their eyes registered in their brains.

"Well, I wouldn't say he needs any saving," Jou stated as Yami jumped up by Aurora's dead body.

"Oh my…" Anzu's face was quite white. "Oh… my…"

Yuugi stared at his yami with wide eyes. "Yami… what you…"

"Nothing!" Yami stared at them looking quite frantic. "Hey, don't look at me like that! I didn't do anything, I found her like this!"

"I… see." Sugoroku as well looked a little white. "I guess we should… take… _that_ somewhere else before someone sees it."

"Before someone sees what?"

Everyone startled and turned to look behind to see Kaiba's questioning look.

"What are you doing here?" Yuugi exclaimed as Kaiba took few steps forward and looked inside over his shoulder. (Actually, he could have easily just looked over his head…)

"Mokuba wanted to come here," he answered and looked at the dead girl thoughtfully. "I see… don't let Mokuba in." He turned around on his heels on walked to his car.

"Why?" Mokuba tried to peek inside. "What's in there? Hey!" he exclaimed when Honda took a grip of his waist and carried him away from the door.

"I think you'd better obey your brother on this matter."

"Definitely." Kaiba was back with them again. "My men will take care of that," he gestured inside. "Let's go in through the backdoor, okay?"

...

"So they have this computer program and this is all there, and they're not really from this dimension or something, and there are some shortcuts to take them home, and that computer has the outline of everything that's happened here – they called this a story – but there seems to be something wrong with it and…"

Everyone else was sitting in the living room while Jou walked around the room, waving with his hands as he explained to them what was going on. Mokuba stared at him with wide eyes, Yuugi was blinking rapidly, and Kaiba was getting more and more annoyed.

"Jou…" Anzu cut him off hesitantly. "What are you talking about?"

"That's what the twins told us! Isn't it?" he looked at Honda for support.

The other boy nodded. "Basically, yes. Although I'm not sure if you're doing so great job in explaining this…"

Jou glared at him angrily, but before he could say anything, Kaiba spoke up. "You said something about a computer."

"They did…"

"Yep," Honda answered cutting Jou off. With a frustrated growl the blond dropped into a chair, but remained quiet. "If I remember right, they said that Unity wrote the program, and it has the outline of how this 'story' was supposed to go. What they look like and what kind of Millennium Items they have is also in that program – and so is who their 'boyfriends' are."

He paused for a while, collecting his thoughts.

"They told us that they've come from another dimension, and they called this the Yu-Gi-Oh! Dimension… I don't really know what they meant by it. That's pretty much all we know."

"I see." Kaiba was staring into emptiness thoughtfully. "If that is true, getting that computer might be a good idea. I believe it's still in my manor, Unity never took it away from there."

"Then maybe we should go to get it," Yuugi said. "But… I was wondering… who was it who killed Aurora?"

Yami shrugged. "Who cares? Good thing she's gone."

"I'm not sure about that…" Anzu said quietly. "I mean, I'm not that found of the idea of having a murderer on the loose here. Can you think of anyone who'd want to kill her?"

Yami looked at her slowly, while Jou tried not to burst into laughter.

"Okay, stupid question," she muttered. "Let's put it like this, can you think of anyone _not in this room_ who'd want to kill her?"

Yami rubbed is chin thoughtfully. "Yami no Malik? He wants to kill everyone, after all… or maybe…" He paused for a while. "I'm not sure, but I have a feeling that they were worried that Azura had betrayed them. I think they thought she'd want to get the Bracelet… maybe she wanted to have the Mascara too."

Kaiba stood up. "And maybe she wants to get the computer. We'd better go there now."

"Right!" Yuugi jumped up as well. "Let's go!"

They went to the front door, everyone of them ignoring the bloodstain on the floor – except Mokuba, who stared at it with wide eyes. Just when Yuugi was about to open the door, the doorbell rang. He froze for a second and looked hesitantly at the others. Yami nodded to him. "Just open it," he whispered.

Yuugi nodded back, and pushed carefully the door open. Outside, on the steps, was standing a very suspicious-looking Otogi.

"Is Azura here?"

Everyone stood frozen for a moment, then Jou, Honda, Kaiba and Yami burst into action at the same time. They grasped Otogi, dragged him inside before he could even shout, and Yuugi closed swiftly the door behind him.

"Hey! What are you doing?"

"Is there any place with a lock here?" Kaiba asked, ignoring the protests of the raven-haired boy.

"Lock? What are you talking about! Let go of m…"

"Be quiet," Kaiba stated and placed his hand on Otogi's mouth. "You're too loud – as usual."

"Here." Sugoroku gestured towards a cellar door.

"Well, he hasn't spent any time in a cellar yet," Jou muttered as the dragged Otogi inside and quickly slammed the door shut behind him.

"Well, now we have him too," Mai stated. "Maybe someone should stay here guarding him, just in case."

Yami nodded. "Why don't you and Shizuka do that?"

She shrugged. "Okay."

Shizuka didn't look too happy about letting his brother leave without her, but agreed to stay as well. The others packed themselves into the two cars again, and started to drive towards the Kaiba mansion.

* * *

Okay, I admit, I took the idea for that imagination game from Neil Gaiman's _Sandman_-series (from the first part of it, I think: _Preludes & Nocturnes_). It just came to my mind when I was writing that scene and refused to let go. That happens. ^^;

The next chapter will be up… some day. There aren't that many left anymore… I know I should have proofread this one once more, but… too tired. x.x G'night. Going to bed now.


	12. Déjà vu

For some time I imagined that this chapter would be the last one, but that just proves how much I know about my fics. In the end, 80% of what happens in this chapter wasn't even supposed to happen… you could say that I kind of lost control with things. –sweatdrop-

Now I imagine that the next chapter will be the last one, but… we'll see. Can't say for sure before I've written it, this fic has a habit of swelling.

**Review responses:**

Tamara Raymond: Thanks for the nomination! I'll have to go there to vote some day soon… And don't worry, short reviews are appreciated as well. As I'm sure I've said before, I'm really glad that you like this.

Bloody Mary: Intelligent Mary-Sue, that'd be something… On the other hand, to be a perfect Mary-Sue, she naturally would have to be super-intelligent... hmm, what a dilemma. Anyway, thanks for the review!

Opal Shadow: -grin- Otogi's is 'free', at least for a moment. Poor boy, am I cruel to him or what? Anyway, this chapter took me a little by a surprise… Actually, I guess I can tell you that Azura's appearance in this is _very_ short. It wasn't supposed to be, but so many other things started happening… -sweatdrop-

Pikachumaniac: Take it easy, I saved Yuki just in time. Hmm… now that you started talking about environmental things… Maybe I should have changed her into a seal that's flying from seal hunters. Anyway… heh. I didn't even notice that transition before you pointed it out.

Tokemi: -nods- Yep, I agree. –goes to poke some authors who should update their fics- You guys still alive? Actually I think that one of them isn't… T.T … Okay, just ignore that comment. Poor brainwashed Otogi, indeed. I wonder when I'm going to get him fixed… Thanks for the review!

* * *

**Chapter 12: Déjà vu **

_/This was what I call a good day's job./_

Ryou only sighed.

_/It isn't every day I can feed people to duel monsters without anyone trying to intervene/_ Bakura continued cheerfully. There was quiet chuckling in the back of Ryou's mind. _/I wonder if the Pharaoh is still enchanted by 'his queen'… hmm, why don't we go to see?/_

Ryou sighed again. "I'm tired, I want to go home," he muttered. It really had been a long day.

_/But don't you want to help your friends? We should go to save the Pharaoh, right?/_

Ryou snorted. _/As if you wanted to save him. You just want to go there to laugh at him, right?/_

_/Me? Would I…/_

_/Yes, you would/_ Ryou cut him off. Bakura fell silent, and for a moment he thought that his yami had dropped the subject, but suddenly he found himself thrown to the back of his soulroom.

_/Yami!/_

Bakura grinned. _/I admit, you're right. I would./_

...

Malik was not in the best of moods currently. First of all, he had tried to get a little nap but hadn't slept too well because his dark side kept on interrupting his sleep, secondly, once he finally gave up sleeping and went to the kitchen to get something to eat he found the fridge empty (okay, there were a couple of tomatoes, and he really didn't have anything against tomatoes, but… let's face this. If you are really hungry, how much do two tomatoes help?), and after that his yami found out that the Bracelet had disappeared while he slept. He still had a headache from all the screaming and swearing that had taken place in his head.

Shortly put, the evening wasn't going too well for him.

He got on his motorbike, stepped on the gas and, blatantly ignoring the other traffic on the street, started to drive towards the game shop. He was quite sure that the one who had stolen the Bracelet had to be one of these annoying Millennium Girls, or whatever it was they had called themselves. Since they had earlier lodged at the game shop, he would probably find them there now as well. In hic current enraged state (not to mention the headache), he couldn't have cared less about the possible dangers of his mission. Anyway, there was only one Bracelet, all the girls wouldn't be able to use it at the same time. Now that he knew their tricks they wouldn't pose any kind of threat to him.

So he continued his way at full throttle, passing every car on his way and almost giving heart attacks to their drivers.

As the game shop finally came into view, his eyes immediately stopped on a white-haired boy who was walking towards it. He frowned a little. What did Ryou have to do here? He slowed down by the other, immediately seeing that it was the yami in control.

Bakura gave him a short nod. "What brought you here?"

"I was just going to ask you the same," Malik answered, still frowning.

"Oh, I'm just going to 'save' the Pharaoh," Bakura said lightly. "We can't leave him into the hands of his lovely queen, can we?"

Malik just stared at him suspiciously not saying anything as they arrived to the game shop. He left his bike by the pavement and followed Bakura to the front door.

"You sure it's wise just to walk in?" he asked as Bakura tried the door and it opened.

"Afraid?"

He shrugged off the mocking question and entered the house after Bakura. They had barely taken two steps when Mai appeared in the doorway a bread knife in her hand.

She blinked at them, they blinked at her – for a moment everyone was blinking.

"What are you doing here?" they exclaimed then in unison.

Malik was the first to answer. "We came to save the Pharaoh," he said with sarcastic air. "And you?"

Mai shrugged. "We saved the Pharaoh," she said, making Bakura's face to fall. "Or… actually he saved himself before we came. Then the others left to the Kaiba mansion."

Bakura began cursing silently. "Saved himself… he just has to ruin all the fun in my life, doesn't he…" he muttered under his breath.

"So, why didn't you go with them?" Malik asked.

"Me and Shizuka stayed here to guard Otogi. He is still under the influence of the Mascara."

"Otogi?" Malik frowned thoughtfully while Bakura continued cursing (and getting lectured by Ryou on the language he used). "I wonder… could I ask him a couple of questions? Maybe he knows, umm… something I want to know," he finished lamely.

Mai gave him a long look but shrugged then. "Sure, why not. He's in the cellar."

"What's going on?" Shizuka as well entered the room.

"Malik's got some questions for Otogi," Mai answered as she led them to the cellar door and started to open it. "Just be careful he doesn't…"

She didn't have time to finish the sentence as Otogi jumped out of the cellar. He didn't get far before Bakura and Malik stopped him.

"Why do I have to always be the one who gets run over by lovesick prisoners?" Mai muttered as she scrambled up from the floor.

"Let go off me!" Otogi managed somehow to bite Malik's hand and he let go for a moment with a yelp. That didn't help Otogi though, since Bakura had a good hold of his other hand and Mai and Shizuka lunged to catch the other.

"Let go! I have to go to save her!"

"Oh, be quiet!" Malik grasped his hair and stared into his eyes. "Do you know anything about the Millennium Bracelet?"

Otogi blinked. "Bracelet? What makes you think I'd know anything about it? I don't know who stole it, I just want to…"

Malik's eyes narrowed. "How do you know it was stolen?"

"I…" Otogi blinked. "Uh, I just… I'm psychic?"

Malik snorted. "Sure." He took a firmer grip of Otogi's hair and drew his head so close to his that their noses almost touched. "You stole it, didn't you?"

Otogi really didn't like this situation. "Me? What do you take me for, some common thief? Of course I didn't, what would I do with it?"

"Take it to your 'sweetheart'," Mai said suddenly. "She wanted to have it, didn't she?"

Azura's beautiful blue eyes floated to Otogi's mind when she was mentioned. He sighed dreamily, relaxing a little. "I just wanted to make her eyes shine like two blue stars," he whispered quietly, not even realizing that he was speaking aloud.

There was a moment's silence. Just when Malik was going to demand him to tell what Azura had done with the Bracelet, Bakura burst into laughter.

"He… _he _really _stole_… it? From _you_?" he managed to get out between his guffaws. "This... _pathetic_ creature...…" He almost fell down to the floor holding his stomach from the laughter. Otogi stared at him, unsure whether he should be insulted or relieved at this distraction.

"Stole it… from under your… nose…"

_/That tomb thief is really starting to annoy me… though he has a point. This almost_ _could_ _be funny – if this had happened to someone else. Why couldn't you…/_

_/Oh, _please_ be quiet! And do you have to deliberately make my headache worse all the time?/_

_/I think you do deserve some headache for losing my toy,/ _a wry voice commented in his head, but thankfully fell then silent.

Malik gave the still-laughing Bakura an angry glare. "And will _you_ stop that laughing! I was just sleeping for a while, I…"

"Oh yes… poor little Malik…" Bakura gave up trying to stay on his feet and fell down to sit on the floor. "Just taking a nap, and then bad boys come to steal his treasure…"

"I told you to shut up!" Malik screamed grabbing Bakura's shirt and dragged him up. "How could I have known that some idiot would be stupid enough to try to brave my wrath!"

This only made Bakura to laugh harder. "Your wrath? Since when has…"

"Hey, guys?" Mai interrupted him. "Maybe you should calm down, this isn't a good time for fighting."

Bakura ignored her, and Malik only shot an angry glare at her before turning his attention back to Bakura. Shizuka and Mai shared an exasperated look as Malik continued screaming at the white-haired boy who didn't seem to be able to stop laughing.

Otogi stared at the two boys, vaguely amused. This turn of events was quite welcome for him – he really didn't care explaining to Malik how he had been snooping around in his house.

Then it hit him. Now that Malik and Bakura were fighting the only ones holding him were a couple of girls, and their attention was on the boys. With a sudden move he wrenched himself free and started running.

...

The rain had made the weather to cool a little, and there was quite a pleasant freshness in the air. The sun hadn't set yet, and everything glistened in its rays. Slowly, the day was turning into a night. Domino really was a pleasant place to visit when it was summer.

A middle-aged man was standing on the pavement smoking a cigarette. Why he was doing that I don't know, since he had wanted to go get some fresh air, and I'd say that a cigarette quite effectively ruins that… Anyway, he leaned against a car and enjoyed the cool weather. He, his wife, their daughter and her dog were visiting his wife's sister and her family. The visit had been quite successful, everyone had had good time, and he had been able to forget the weird events from the morning.

He frowned a little. He really hadn't been going to think about that. These days, even peaceful little villages like his hometown were turning into nests of some hooligan gangs. Quite incredible. Something really should be done, but no one seemed to be interested in taking action.

Hmm… maybe they should move to Domino. He took an estimating look around. Domino was a city, and he had many times been talking with his wife about the benefits of living in a city, but still it wasn't _too_ big, and all in all it seemed to be quite a peaceful place. At least this part of it was very pleasant… He made a decision to talk about this with his wife on the way home, stubbed out his cigarette and turned to go back in.

Just then the door of a game shop on the other side of the street was thrown open. With a start he looked behind to see a raven-haired boy running out, stopping dead by a motorbike that was parked at the shop, jumping then on it and speeding away.

Two other boys ran out of the shop as well, another of them cursing loudly after the disappearing bike. The other one though… the boy was running towards _him_, and he gulped as he recognized the mad-eyed, white-haired weirdo he had ran across earlier.

Before he could say anything the white-haired boy's hand had found it's way into his pocket and was grasping the keys of his car.

"Come on, Malik!" the boy shouted running to the car.

"Hey, wait a minute! That's my car!" he shouted getting over his initial shock. He tried to grasp the white-haired boy but he slipped from his hands like an eel.

"Give me those keys," the other boy was shouting. "I'm gonna drive."

"I can…!"

"Since when have tomb thieves known how to drive a car?" The boy – Malik, was he? – grasped the keys, shoved the man away, and sat on the driver's seat. Two girls had appeared from the shop and plunged into the car too. Another of them, a beautiful blonde the man remembered seeing before, flashed a quick smile at him.

"We'll borrow this for a moment," she shouted and then quickly drew the door close as the car screeched away.

He blinked after the car, seriously starting to consider moving to some other country.

...

"Okay, where did he go…?"

Malik was grasping the wheel knuckles white. Looking at him, Bakura began to doubt that it might have been safer with him driving after all, despite the fact that he had never driven before. Malik's eyes were getting quite a mad gleam….

"I'm going to teach him… stealing the bracelet… stealing my bike… going to be _so_ sorry…"

Bakura shook his head. That guy was really getting a little too worked up for his own good.

"Where did he go!"

Malik's sudden scream made him to start a little.

"I think we lost him," he answered calmly.

"Lost him?" Malik turned his maddened glare to him. "Lost him?" he shrieked. "What do you mean _lost_ him? He's got my bike! _My bike!_"

"Look where you're driving!" Mai screamed from the backseat and Malik narrowly missed hitting a streetlamp.

"Maybe we should stop for a moment to consider…" Shizuka started to say meekly but Malik didn't let her to finish the sentence.

"Stop? We won't stop till we find my bike! I'm going to teach that lowly thief to touch my property! I'll make him…"

Bakura reached out his hand, grasped the key, and turned the engine off. Malik shouted angrily as the car came to a stop.

"What do you think you're doing! Give me that key…" He reached for the key but Bakura held it out of his reach.

"I think you'd better to try to calm down a little… if we just drive around aimlessly we're never going to find anything."

Malik took a deep breath, and hit then annoyedly the steering wheel. "I just want my [_censored_] bike back…" he muttered. With an angry shake of his head he held his hand to Bakura. "Give me that key, we can't stop in the middle of the street."

Slowly he drove the car to the side of the street.

"If someone's _ever_ going to complain about my driving again…" Mai muttered. Both she and Shizuka were still quite pale.

...

First, Otogi had driven to his home, hoping to find Azura there. The place turned out to be empty. He spent a moment wondering what to do, and decided then to go to Unity to ask if she knew where his love was, blissfully unaware that to find Unity he would have had to go to the Domino City Hospital.

As he drove towards the Kaiba mansion he was, again, happily ignorant of the car that started to follow him as he happened to pass a bridge from which certain people spotted him.

...

Meanwhile, the others had arrived to the mansion. They had found the computer in what used to be Unity's room, and currently Seto was trying to figure out it's programming. The deepening frown on his face didn't bode well, though. The others were sprawled across the room on the bed and chairs.

"_How_ long does it take?" Jou complained finally. He stretched his hands a little as he lay on the bed. "Try to hurr…"

"I _am_ trying!"" Kaiba snapped at him. "If you want me to get ready some day, stop bothering me."

"Well, _sorry_," Jou snorted. "But no one's been bothering you for half an hour or so, and still…"

"It's because this computer makes no sense!" Kaiba exclaimed, hitting the table in frustration. "There's only one program in this, and _nothing_ else. Not even an operating system… I don't understand how it can work in the first place."

"What kind of program is it?" Yuugi had gotten up from his chair and was looking at the computer over Kaiba's shoulder.

He shrugged. "No idea. There's no information about it, nothing… as far as I know, it shouldn't even exist, but there it still is.

Yuugi frowned at the computer screen. It was colored light pink and had a flower icon with a smiley face in it. That was all.

"So… is that a shortcut to it?" he asked pointing to the flower.

"Yes," Kaiba said, double clicking it. Nothing happened. "But as you see, it doesn't work."

He clicked the icon with the right mouse button, and chose then 'properties' from the menu. A small window appeared, and he clicked next on 'general'. _Type: Shortcut. Location: _– _._ _Size: 0 bytes [0 bytes], 0 bytes used._ He gave an exasperated sigh. "That program just doesn't exist… Are you sure that there _is_ something in this computer?"

Mokuba too had come to his brother and stared at the computer. "I guess there has to be, niisama. Why else would Unity have been so possessive of it if there weren't anything important in it? And I remember once when I… kind of… sneaked to her when she was using it, and I managed to see something that looked like a text processor."

"If there isn't anything in it… could you install some programs into it?"

Seto was shaking his head before Yuugi could finish his question. "I've tried that. Nothing even starts installing." He leaned back in his chair rubbing his temples. "That machine drives me crazy," he muttered quietly and continued staring at the screen, while Jou started snoring on the bed.

...

While Kaiba was battling with the computer a taxi stopped in the front of his mansion. A girl stepped out of it, paid and gave a tip, and started walking towards the mansion. The guards tried to stop her, but she just batted her eyelashes at them and soon they changed their minds. She had just reached the main door when shouting at the gates made her to stop.

"Azura! Azura, is that you love? Wait for me! …damn you, let me go… Let me go!"

She turned to look back, and saw Otogi battling with the guards.

"It's okay," she shouted. "Let him come!"

Reluctantly the guards let go of the boy and watched him jealously as he ran to Azura.

"Oh, love, I'm _so_ glad that I found you…"

"Yes, yes… what is it?" Azura asked a little impatiently. "I think I told you to stay home."

"You have to be careful, love!" Otogi grasped her hand agitatedly. "They are here!"

Azura sighed. "_Who_ are here?"

"Yami and others! He won Nightfall in a Shadow Game, and someone killed Aurora, and then they left here, I heard them talking about getting some computer, and…"

Azura frowned. "That's enough," she said cutting Otogi off. "Thanks for telling me. Now…" She thought for a moment. "Wait here and guard the door. I'll go in to get the computer."

"But…"

"Just do what I told you to."

Azura entered the mansion and left Otogi standing by the door, feeling quite rejected. As he sullenly stared at the door, he didn't notice the car that had stopped near to the mansion's gate.

_Left me again… why on earth did she want to come here? For a_ computer? He snorted. _Why would she be interested of a computer… it has to be only an excuse. I bet she came here to see Kaiba._

He froze suddenly as a horrible thought entered his mind.

_What if… what if she's cheating me with Kaiba? Maybe they have a secret meeting… maybe she wanted to get the Bracelet so that she could give it to _him_!_

That, of course, made sense to no one else but him. By this time, he had completely forgotten that Kaiba had been at the game shop and was one of those who were plotting against his love. The only thing he could think about was that his beloved didn't love him anymore. For a moment he considered doing something drastic, like abandoning his former life and running away to live as a Buddhist monk, but since he had a feeling he couldn't become a Buddhist monk without shaving his head, he decided to go to speak with Azura first.

Malik and Bakura watched from the street as the black-haired boy entered the mansion.

"So… he got in." Bakura stated quietly.

"And quite easily too," Malik continued after he had checked his bike and found it to be in good condition. "How will we do it? I somewhat doubt we can charm the guards to let us in."

"Just speak for yourself," Mai muttered and walked to the guards.

"Hi!" She flashed them a bright smile. "Did my little sister already come here? You know, an _extremely_ beautiful girl, with blond hair and blue eyes?"

The guards' suspicious expressions melted in an instant.

"Yes," one of them answered. "She did… such an angel…" He looked quite dreamy.

"I'm afraid we still can't let you in, miss," another guard said as Mai gestured to the others to follow and made a move to get in.

"Oh…" She pouted a little. "Just imagine how sad she'll be when she finds out that you refused to let in her sister, her best friend, and their boyfriends." She drew quickly Bakura closer and hugged him. "Just let us go in, and we'll put in a good word for you." Wink. "She might even come to thank you."

The guards glanced at each other and nodded then as one.

As soon as they entered they mansion Bakura shook Mai's hand off. "Women's tricks…"

"Don't complain," Malik said lightly. "At least we got in."

"I wonder where they are…" Shizuka was looking around in awe. "This is quite a big place."

"Really big," Mai agreed. "Where are all the servants? You'd imagine there'd be quite a lot of them in a place like this."

"Who knows." Bakura shrugged. "I guess we'd better just start searching."

* * *

Yes… that's quite cliffhangry. Sorry. I just have to figure out what's going on before I continue…

Next chapter should be the last one, unless nothing earth shattering takes place. Like alien abductions… or maybe the squirrels attack… or… who knows what with this story. I don't, anyway. As always, reviews are appreciated. )


	13. The Grande Finale

... I just noticed that I had mixed up the words 'coach' and 'couch' in one earlier chapter. Sitting on a coach… Heh. Maybe I'll correct that some day when I'm not feeling this lazy.

Anyway, folks, this is the last chapter. Hopefully you'll enjoy it. At least try to... ; )

And as always, many thanks to the reviewers!

Bloody Mary: *grin* I guess the question is what Azura will do with them… or at least, what she thinks she'll do. Thanks for the review!

Ethelflaed: …okay… I am dreaming. But it sure looked like French to me… Anyway, sometimes my MS's scare me too. Especially after what I learned about them in this chapter…. And that computer is scary too. (Though sometimes it feels like my computer were just like it…)

Tokemi: "Why does she live?" …uh… cause I need her for this story? Can't really come up with any other explanation. ; ) lol… poor Otogi indeed. I have a feeling that I've not been nice to him.

innominate: Heh, that part made me too to think about LotR when I wrote it. Anyway, your question. Actually, Unity was still in Domino when she woke up… *pauses for a while* Yes, she was. (I just had to check whether I remembered correctly which one of them was Unity…) I'm afraid she's now stuck into some lunatic asylum in Domino. *grin* Maybe this chapter will clear things up… or then, maybe not. I have a feeling that I'm myself a little confused right now… *sweatdrop* ... And yes, before I forget, if you find those parodies, I could take a look on them. : )

* * *

**Chapter 13: The Grande Finale **

Jou was snoring, Yuugi, Yami and Anzu were talking quietly, Honda was staring out of the window playing with a pen he'd found, and Sugoroku was snoozing in his armchair. Meanwhile, Seto was still battling with the laptop, refusing to believe that there could be a computer in the world he wouldn't be able to use. Mokuba stood beside him, watching a little worriedly at the twitch that was developing in his brother's eye.

"Niisama… maybe you should take a break," he suggested quietly, but Seto ignored him.

"I _will_ make this work," he just muttered, and continued staring at the screen with a twitching eye.

Mokuba sighed and sat down on the bed.

"He's impossible," he muttered to Yuugi who looked at him questioningly. "And stop that snoring!" he yelled a little angrily at Jou making the older boy to wake up with a yelp.

"Wha… what?" Jou stared around with a bemused expression on his face. "Oh damn," he breathed as his eyes stopped on Seto and the computer. "Is he _still_ working on that crap?"

"I'd like to see how much better _you'd_ do," Mokuba said a little defensively. Jou just shrugged and lay back down on the bed.

"I hope he'll get ready soon," Anzu whispered. "If Azura is coming here…"

She stopped talking as she noticed how the door handle was slowly turning. The others followed her gaze as the door opened.

"When you speak of the devil…" Honda muttered, jumping up as a beautiful blond girl appeared in the doorway. "Catch her!"

Suddenly everyone was on the move.

"Someone stay guard the computer," Seto shouted as he as well lunged towards the door. Yuugi, Anzu and Sugoroku glanced at each other and remained in the room. At the door Seto grasped Mokuba's hand. "You too", he said flinging the boy back into the room.

"But…" Mokuba started to say, but his brother had already disappeared. "Damn."

"And don't curse!" he heard Seto's voice from somewhere.

In the corridor outside the room the four boys were glancing frantically around.

"Where did she go?"

"How should I know? Let's split up!"

Jou winced. _A big mansion in the night… 'Let's split up!' …a scream in the dark…_

"Come on, now!" Honda dragged him on the move again. "We'll go this way."

Seto winced as well as he looked after the two boys. "Somehow I don't like the idea of having those two running around here on their own… anyway, let's go!" He and Yami started to run to the opposite direction.

Jou and Honda ran forward in the corridor, glancing into the rooms they passed.

"There's not a soul here…" Honda muttered, and Jou winced again. _Hope so…_

They came to a staircase and stopped for a moment.

"Okay… you go down, and I'll check the rest of this floor. See you!"

"But…" Jou looked for a moment after Honda and cursed then silently. "So what."

He ran down the stairs, wondered for a moment into which direction to go, shrugged then and left to the right. He walked on quietly, peeking into the rooms on his way. There was no one anywhere. He was just starting to relax a little when he suddenly heard something. Steps. Coming from behind the corner. Like a flash he pressed himself against the wall and waited. The steps came closer, and after a moment someone stepped into the view from behind the corner… blond hair…

"Gotcha!" he shouted, grapping the girl from behind. A startled scream cut the air, and then someone hit him lightly on the back of his head.

"Fool," a dry voice commented.

"Jou!" The girl in his grasp wrenched herself free. "You _idiot_!" Another blow, this one not so light, met his face. "What do you think you're doing, assaulting a girl like that?"

He blinked. "Mai? What are you doing here?"

"Otogi ran away, and we followed him here," Shizuka explained. "We saw that Azura came here too."

"I know she's here," Jou said rubbing his maltreated face. "I was just trying to find her. You've seen anyone?"

Shizuka shook her head while Bakura took his Ring away from under his shirt.

"She's upstairs," he said, looking at the trinkets of the Ring.

"You sure?" Jou looked at him suspiciously. "Yuugi's there too, if that's pointing to _him_?"

"I am sure." With that he started to climb the stairs up, and the others followed him.

...

"There's no one here," Yami muttered as he was checking the Xth room. "You have too big house."

Seto snorted. "I'd imagine that a Pharaoh would have grown used to big houses."

"Maybe, if the Pharaoh remembered something about them." Yami tried still another door, but it didn't open. "This is locked," he said.

Seto glanced at the door. "As it is supposed to be. She's hardly there."

As the two continued their way, the door opened a little, and a blond head peeked out of it. As she saw that the way was clear, Azura started to run quietly towards Unity's old room.

...

"Do you think they'll catch her?" Yuugi asked the others nervously.

"I hope so…" Sugoroku said. "This a big place, though."

"Very big," Mokuba agreed from the bed. "He should have let me to help, I know all the hiding places."

"I think your brother was right in leaving you here. This is the safest place right now," Anzu said, but just then Azura burst into the room. "Or then not," she muttered as she jumped to her feet.

"Stop right there!" Sugoroku, who was closest to the table, tried to seize Azura as she grasped the laptop, but she managed to hit him on the head with it.

"Grandpa!" Yuugi shrieked as the old man fell down. _/Yami! She's here!/_

_/What? Oh damn… hold on, we're coming!/_

Azura was currently facing some difficulties as Mokuba hang on her right leg and Anzu was trying to take the computer from her. Yuugi as well lunged forward to seize another of her arms, and in the end the whole bunch fell down to the floor.

Azura managed somehow to kick Mokuba of her legs at the same time as she swiped at Anzu with the laptop and made her fall back as well. She grasped quickly a key that was hanging around her neck with her other hand. Yuugi blinked as he suddenly saw a keyhole appearing on the floor. He opened his mouth to shout, but just then Azura stuck the key into the hole, and the floor disappeared from beneath the two of them.

Anzu and Mokuba blinked at the empty floor just as Yami appeared in the doorway.

"Aibou! Where…"

Anzu turned to look at him. "They… just disappeared."

...

Yuugi shook his head trying to clear it. _Wow. That was quite a fall…_ He raised his head a little and took a look around. A frown appeared on his face.

"What?"

He was sitting on sand, and there was sand everywhere around him. Nothing but sand. Except… behind him, there was some big, pyramid-shaped building that looked like a… a… well, like a pyramid. A lonely figure was walking towards it.

Azura.

He jumped quickly to his feet and ran after her.

Azura looked over her shoulder at the approaching boy and sighed. "Go away."

"Away?" Yuugi had reached her. "Like… where?"

Azura shrugged. "I don't know. And I don't care. But you can't stop me alone."

Yuugi looked at her nervously. "What are you going to do?"

"Something we should have done in the first place, when we had a chance. I told them that but they weren't interested. Fools. It came clear very soon that they just cared about their stupid 'mission', and nothing else." She stopped talking for a while, and looked at the pyramid rising in the front of them with a smile, as the desert wind blew in her hair and flapped the end of her coat behind her. "I am going to awake the true powers of the Mary-Sues in this dimension."

Yuugi blinked, trying to process this. He faced no success so he blinked again. "Say again?"

"The Mary-Sues. The Demigoddesses. The most beautiful, intelligent, powerful creatures the world has ever known. Like me and the others. There is no point for you trying to stop me. The Mary-Sues are always the best in what they do – and in everything they _don't_ do as well. That makes us invincible! And now I will become the mightiest of them all, I will finally reach the first level and _more_!" She gave a little cackle. "I guess they didn't realize what they were doing when they created those so-called Millennium Items… I will gain the powers I was denied with their own artifacts!"

At that she laughed out loud, and Yuugi winced a little. _That girl is _not_ sane…_

"Who 'they'?" he asked, but Azura ignored him. After a while he continued, "So… the other girls were Mary-Sues too, but where are they now?"

Azura smirked. "They were really just wannabes. And stupid. _I_ on the other hand, I am the ultimate Mary-Sue."

They had entered the pyramid. Inside it was a big room, and in the middle of the room there was a stone tablet.

"So, here we are." Azura stopped in the front of the tablet. "Now that I finally have all our Millennium Items for myself…"

Yuugi frowned. "All?" he tried to think fast. "But… you don't have Pearl's dagger! Do you…?"

"Of course I do." Azura smirked a little. "The original one was destroyed, so with the help of the computer I made a replica."

"Huh?" Yuugi stared at her with wide eyes. "You can't make a replica of a Millennium Item!" _And when would she have had time to do that?_

"I can't? Then what is this?" Azura held a dagger in her hand. "I can do what I want to." She placed the Dagger on its place in the tablet. "And here we go… the Mascara, the Bracelet, the Book and the Quill, my Key… and then." She raised the computer from the floor. "The Millennium Computer. It has been very helpful to me… I don't think Unity ever realized what I was doing when I used it. Like… creating this place…"

She started to set the computer on its place in the tablet.

"No!" Yuugi shrieked and leaped at her. "No you _won't_!"

The computer fell on the floor. With a horrified yelp Azura tried to reach it, but Yuugi got it first and slammed it to the floor again, breaking it into pieces.

Azura wailed loudly, falling to her knees and trying to gather all the pieces. "Why? Why did you have to do that! Oh gods…" She tried desperately to fix the computer, but it was quite impossible.

Suddenly Yuugi noticed that the world around them was changing into something weird. It was as if they were in a very old computer game, where everything was quite angular, all the pixels visible… His eyes fell on the broken computer, and suddenly he felt as if he were in _Matrix_.

_/Yami!/_ He tried to reach for his other half through their link. _/Yami, help! This world is breaking down! Disappearing!/_

For a moment there was nothing and in desperation he was just going to shout again, when he heard a quiet voice.

_/Aibou? Where are you?/_

He almost started to cry from relieve. _/I don't know, but get me out of here! Soon!/_ he looked down at his hands and saw to his horror that they too were getting pixelated

_/Don't panic, aibou./_ Yami's voice was wonderfully calming. _/I need your help to get you away from there. Just reach for me, use the Puzzle./_

Yuugi tried to do as he was told to. Closing his eyes, he concentrated on what he felt from Yami, and tried to reach towards those feelings.

_/There you go! Give me your hand!/_ He carefully cracked open his eyes and saw rip in the mosaic-like air, and through that rip he could see Yami and some other figures behind him. He reached forward and felt a solid hand closing around his fingers, starting to pull him out of that nightmare.

"You…" An angry snarl came from behind him, and he jumped forward as quickly as he could, landing on the top of Yami as they both fell down on the floor.

"You damned…"

"You're not coming here," he heard Bakura's voice cutting Azura of. He and Yami scrambled to their feet and turned to look at the tear in the air. Azura was standing just on the other side of it – or at least he thought it was Azura, it was difficult to be sure since the only thing that could be seen was a human shaped figure with something blond on the top, the rest had disappeared under the pixels.

"Step aside!" she yelled at Bakura, but he held his ground with a smirk.

The pyramid and desert had disappeared, and there was only darkness around the lonely figure, slowly eating away what was rest of her body as well. Suddenly a mad laughter echoed into the room from the darkness.

"You think you've won, don't you? You fools! I am the personification of marysue-ism! You can kill me but you can never kill the concept! Just wait… one day I will be back!"

Then the darkness swept away what little there was still left. Everyone was staring after her as the rip slowly closed.

"…you know, Bakura," Yami finally said. "That really did remind me of you."

Bakura turned to face him with a snarl. "If you're _ever_ going to compare me to that creature again, Pharaoh, I'm going to shatter that Puzzle of yours and throw the pieces into Mariana Trench!"

_/Take it easy, yami!/_ Ryou tried to calm his yami down. _/And would you_ please _let me finally out of here?/_

_/Why would I?/_ Bakura stated grumpily.

Ryou sighed. _/Please?/_

"So what," Bakura muttered, and suddenly there were two white-haired boys standing side by side.

"Well, hello, Ryou!" Malik greeted him happily. "Nice to see you too! It's a good time to come out now, of course, when all the enemies are defeated, but…"

"Oh be quiet," Ryou muttered unhappily. "It's not my fault, _he_ was refusing to let me out." He threw an accusing look at Bakura who just shrugged.

"That way I could easiest keep you out of trouble and in one piece."

Ryou stared at him with wide eyes. "So… you care?" he finally asked disbelievingly.

Bakura reddened slowly. "I didn't say that! I just… might need you for something some day. Although I can't imagine for what, but…"

"Aww… that's so cute." Malik smiled at him sweetly. "Bakura the Mother Hen. Who would have…"

He was saved from the cruel fate that was only few seconds away as a black-haired boy stumbled into the room.

"Azura! Where are you? What have you done to my love?" Otogi glared at them angrily, hands clenched into fists. "I swear, if you've hurt her, I will…"

Yami glanced at Kaiba. "Do you have a bathroom close by? I think he needs a cold shower."

"Sure. Over there." Kaiba gestured with his hand, and Jou, Honda and Malik started to drag a screaming Otogi away.

After a few _very_ cold baths, spiked with some Shadow Powers, a very grumpy Otogi accompanied the others outside the mansion. He didn't care so much about the whole enchantment-issue, but what made him really annoyed was that for the second time this day his hairdo was completely ruined.

"So," Sugoroku stated quietly. "We did survive this little adventure."

"Little," Jou snorted. "I'm not sure if that's the right word to describe this. But we did survive." He grinned. "Anyone care to celebrate this? We could go to see how's the nightlife in the city tonight… there might be some pretty girls in the clubs."

Sugoroku gave him a long look. "Firstly, you are not old enough to go clubbing, and secondly, if you don't remember it was 'pretty girls' who caused this mess."

Jou shrugged. "So? They can't _all_ be crazy. You want to come?" he looked questioningly at Yuugi.

"Uh, I don't think so." Yuugi gave him a weak smile. "I think I want to go home to sleep."

"Okay, as you wish. Uh… could you take Shizuka home, then?"

As Yuugi nodded he turned to look at Honda. "We'll be going, right?"

"Sure." Honda nodded. "Bye!"

"Besides," they heard Jou's voice as the two walked away. "I don't know how we ever could have smuggled _him_ into a club."

Yuugi blushed a little and Anzu patted him on the shoulder. "Just ignore those idiots."

Sugoroku nodded in agreement. "Let's just go to home, and…" Just then his cell phone started ringing and he answered it. The others waited as he listened carefully. After a while he lowered the phone and looked at them with a frown.

"There is some man there who claims that some gangsters from my shop stole his car. You wouldn't know anything about this?"

Bakura and Malik glanced quickly at each other before shaking their heads, while Mai produced a nail file from her bag and started filing her nails. Shizuka glanced at the car, which had a long scratch from a narrowly missed street lamp on its side, and started to stare at the ground.

"Well, I have to be going. Big sis will be worried if I don't go home soon." Malik jumped on his bike. "I don't know about any cars, I have my bike." With a quick 'good night' he speeded away.

"What?" Bakura said as Sugoroku turned his eyes to him. "You know I can't even drive."

"Yeah, and I can't drive either." Ryou grasped his yami's hand. "Let's go home."

"Sure."

Sugoroku looked for a moment after the two white-haired boys, and then he turned his gaze to Mai who was still filing her nails.

She looked up after a while with a sigh. "I didn't drive," she just stated.

"And neither did I, before you ask," Otogi cut in. "I, uh… got a ride on Malik's bike?" He grinned at Sugoroku's incredulous look and grasped a cell phone of his own. "I think I'll call a car to take me home."

Sugoroku shook his head. "The car is here, but no one drove it," he said glancing at the car. "I don't know what…"

"Don't worry about it." Kaiba snatched the phone from his hand. "Give me your address, and I send someone to drive the car to you. With compensation," he added, and nodded after a while. Snapping the call off he threw it back to Sugoroku.

"Well… if you take care of the car, I guess we can go home now," Sugoroku said as he put the phone away.

Yuugi nodded at his grandpa. "Good idea. I want my bed…" An enormous yawn escaped him. "Do you want a lift, Mai?"

She shook her head. "No, I think I'll get a taxi."

The taxi and Otogi's car arrived at the same time, and after a while they all had packed themselves into their respective cars.

"Good night!" Mokuba waved happily after the cars until they had disappeared from sight.

Seto placed a hand on his shoulder. "Come on, kid. Time for you to go bed as well."

"I'm not tired," Mokuba objected as they began to walk back in.

"Of course not. I happened to see how you yawned a moment ago."

"That's just cause Yuugi yawned! I couldn't help it!"

"It's past your bedtime anyway. Have you done your homework?"

"What homework? Niisama, it's summer vacation!"

Seto blinked. "Oh yes, I forgot. Still, you have to go to bed."

"How can someone forget summer vacation?" Mokuba muttered as they entered the house. "Could I…"

"Bed."

"But I…"

"Bed."

"_Niisama_…"

"Bed."

"Next time some stupid girl comes to enchant you, I'll _let_ her!" Mokuba shouted and ran to his room.

After a moment Seto followed him and found him sitting on his bed in his pyjamas.

"Did you brush your teeth?"

Mokuba nodded as Seto tucked him in the bed. "Niisama…"

"What?"

"Today was quite fun … do you think we could do it again some day?"

Seto winced. "Preferably not."

Mokuba sighed. "You're boring."

* * *

-/-/-/-/-

**THE JEWEL CITY HERALD**

UNFORTUNATE FAILURE OF THE INVASION OF A NEW DIMENSION, RESULTING IN THE DEATH OF SEVEN MARY-SUES

Today, the Council has confirmed the deeply shocking failure to introduce the glory of M/G-S to a new dimension. Out of the nine Mary-Sues who were sent on the mission, only two returned. One of the deceased was a first-degree Mary-Sue, Azura Eveningstar. Second-degree MS's Unity Seagrave and Dawn Nightingale were also lost, and with them three third-degree MS's: Dawn's sister Aurora Nightingale, and Jewel and Pearl Faymeadow. The three other girls on the mission were novices: Felicia Fairheart, who had entered our ranks a month earlier, and Maryann and Susan Violetwood who joined us just for this mission and who were the only ones to return.  
The mission was carefully prepared. The girls spent long time studying everything that was known of this new dimension, and chose their counterparts based on what they had learned. According to what Maryann and Susan have told in the interrogations, everything started out fine, but it seems that there were some internal conflicts in the group, undoubtedly caused by a hostile third-party, that might have caused their downfall. There have also been rumours about one of the elder MS's of the group having been mentally unbalanced, but malicious gossip like this is better left ignored.  
The Council will meet tomorrow to decide how to proceed on this matter. There is a strong opinion among our members that this dimension should be left alone. Maryann and Susan's experiences make it clear that the dimension is more dangerous than what was first thought. The fact that the girls with their powerful magical items, specially created for this purpose, have obviously been defeated supports this view.  
Our reporter managed to meet the Head of the Council, first-degree GS Alan Ravenhawk, despite of his tight schedule. According to 1GS Ravenhawk, it is highly probable that the Council will put a ban on this dimension. There are many other projects going on, taking place also in our own world, and it is more important to take care of them instead of starting to fight unknown devils. One of the greatest challenges for the coming year will be to ensure that an adequate number of new MS's and GS's will graduate next year to answer the growing demand.

* * *

**A/N:** *blink* That was weird. Even I think so… Confused? Well, everything went something like this: This other world is pretty much ruled by Mary-Sues/Gary-Stus. There's a big school for them. Huh. That's almost scary. Organized Mary-Sues… Anyway, they sent the girls to the world of YGO mainly to spy – to find out if that world was fertile ground for their ideas. On the side, the girls would have got… umm… certain things as natural benefits. Apparently, Azura was a little crazy, and quite power-hungry as well, and she saw this mission as a way to gain the rule of this newly found dimension.

Still confused? Well, then _I_ can't help. And please, don't point out all the plot holes for me… *sweatdrop* I'm sure there are those, given how well planned this fic was. ; )

Many thanks to all who managed to read this far! It's been quite fun writing this, but in a way I'm glad it's over… I was beginning to wonder if this fic was ever going to end. It really wasn't supposed to get this long… originally there were supposed to be about seven chapters.


End file.
